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PSYCHOLOGY 



AND THE 



PSYCHOSIS 



INTELLECT 



BY 

DENTON J. SNIDER. 




U4^ 



-6 



M 



ST. LOUIS: 

Sigma Publishing Co., 

210 Pine St. 

(For sale by A. C. McClurg & Co., Booksellers, Chicago, 111.) 



^ 



\1 



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Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 5 

Intellect 49 

I. Sense-perception ....... 56 

1. Sensation 60 

External Factor ...... 62 

Mean Factor 70 

Internal Factor 90 

2. Perception 118 

Impression . . . , . ........ 126 

Attention . . . . . . . .130 

Eetention 151 

3. Apperception . 161 

Simple Integration 167 

Selective Integration . . . . .181 
Redintegration 195 



o 



(3) 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 



II. Representation 222 

1. Memory 231 

Spontaneous Memory .... 238 

Voluntary Memory 247 

Systematic Memory 256 

2. Imagination 281 

The Natural Symbol 288 

The Artistic Symbol 297 

The Rational Symbol (Sign) . .343 

3. Memorization 385 

The Symbol-learning Ego ... 392 
The Svmbol-employing Ego . . 404 
Communication 410 

III. Thought 425 

1. The Understanding 438 

Apprehension . . . . . . . 442 

Distinction 445 

Classification 454 

2. Ratiocination 470 

Conception 478 

Judgment 498 

Reasoning 507 

3. Reason 513 

Intuition 520 

The Dialectic 536 

The Psychosis . . ' 548 



INTRODUCTION. 

The central fact in Psychology is the Ego. 
This fact may also be called the Self, or the 
Person. The science of Psychology shows the 
unfolding of the Self, and in this aspect we may 
name it the science of the Person. 

At the heart of our science, therefore, we 
place Personality, which is truly the heart of all 
things. The universe without Person at its 
center would be not only meaningless, but im- 
possible. Upon the infinite worth of the Person 
all education, all advancement of civilized so- 
ciety, the whole institutional world repose. 
Now, the Person is essentially self-unfolding, or 
rather is the unfolding of Self ; it has an order, 
and hence there is a science of it, which is this 
order duly formulated. 

(5) 



6 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The first thing which the student is to grasp in 
Psychology, is himself, or his Self. And if he 
obtain the best return for his study, he will get 
not merely some curious information about his 
mind, but will develop into a completer self- 
hood. Undoubtedly the knowledge of the 
mental activities has worth for every rational 
being; herein is Psychology of great use. But 
the real function of our science is to help the 
individual unfold into his true Self, to become an 
actual Person, and not merely remain an unde- 
veloped, potential one. Psychology has an im- 
portant theoretical side which is, in general, to 
impart knowledge of the Ego, but it has also an 
intensely practical side, which is that the Ego 
come into full possession of its heritage, namely, 
a complete Personality. 

The central fact in Psychology, which is the 
Ego, is also called Mind, Consciousness, and 
sometimes Soul, and sometimes Spirit. The 
science of Psychology shows the unfolding of 
the Ego into consciousness, or into the knowledge 
of its own activities, and in this aspect it is often 
named the science of Mind. 

In the present work we shall cling pretty closely 
to the word Ego to express the central fact out 
of which our science develops. The Ego is Per- 
son, which puts stress upon the element of the 



INTBODUCTION. 7 

will, or self-activity; the Ego is Mind, which 
puts stress upon the side of intellect or self- 
consciousness. Still both sides are one totality, 
the Ego, and each side has no existence without 
the other. In every act of intellection there is 
some phase of volition, and in every volition 
there is some phase of intellection. The highest 
philosophy reaches up to the insight that Will and 
Intellect are one in the Divine; but the humblest 
act of mind is a reflection of the same unity. 

Objections have been raised to the use of the 
Latin word Ego in Psychology. Its English 
equivalent can not well be tolerated on account 
of the ambiguity in sound with the organ of 
vision — I and eye. Some form of the term 
must be employed, and the Latin word has the 
advantage of being a technical term in Psychol- 
ogy. Its English flavor is, however, said some- 
times to be unpleasant, on account of its con- 
nection with egotism and selfishness on the one 
hand and its suggestion of brooding and excessive 
self-occupation on the other. Undoubtedly in 
using it the reader may have to lay aside some 
of his preconceptions. 

A great philosopher has shown that the idea of 
the Ego itself is chargeable with ambiguity, 
since it has two quite opposite strands: it is the 
most individual thing in the universe, being the 
very essence of individuality, and it is the most 
universal thing in the universe, being the essence 



8 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of universality. But this ambiguity or twofold- 
ness is really the chief recommendation of the 
term; the Ego must have just these two opposite 
poles in order to be the theme of Psychology. 
It is the most comprehensive word that can be 
used, and at the same time the most definite. 

We should also note that Psychology, as the 
Evolution of the Ego, means not the unfolding 
of- the latter in time, but its movement into an 
ordered totality. The activities of the child's 
Ego develop cotemporaneously as well as in suc- 
cession ; the scientific order is not always the 
chronological. But the science of Psychology 
shows the Ego ordering itself according to its 
own highest activity, namely, Thought. The 
principle of psychological procedure is not to 
be taken from the outside, is not to be picked up 
from physical science, say, and clapped on exter- 
nally, to the movement of Mind; that is the 
most alien, artificial and jejune of all methods. 
On the contrary the Ego must order the Ego, 
being just the self-orderer in its highest potence. 

Already the question concerning the definition 
of the Ego has arisen. To define it formally, 
from the outside, through something else besides 
itself, is clearly impossible. Any such defini- 
tion would have to leave out the main fact, and 
so would be partial or indeed meaningless. Let 
us, however, give a fresh, and, if possible, deeper 
glance into the matter. 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

The Ego is, first, Self, Person; the Ego is, 
secondly, the conscious, the knowing; the Ego 
is, thirdly, the self-conscious, the self-knowing, 
uniting thus both its sides into one process. 
From the standpoint of definition, the Ego is 
Self, is the definer, and is the Self-definer. 

Is this to define the Ego? Or, to put the 
question in a little different shape, Can the 
Ego define the Ego? Some psychologists say 
that, inasmuch as the Ego must define every- 
thing, it cannot define itself. But this state- 
ment is really a contradiction, and hence 
self-annulling. The Ego does define all and 
itself too ; or, rather, since it is included in the 
all, which it defines, it cannot be left outside of 
its own definition. The Ego is, accordingly, 
self-defined, not defined through anything else 
but itself. Indeed its fundamental characteristic 
is to be self-definition. 

Thus we touch the peculiarity of Psychology: 
the very thing to be observed, ordered, and 
defined, is just the thing observing, ordering, 
and defining; the central sun which reveals the 
whole universe, cannot fail of revealing itself at 
the same time. The Ego is the witness and the 
fact witnessed, the spectator and the spectacle ; 
double in its action, yet single; ground of all 
difference, yet of all unity as well ; divided 
within itself, yet individual (note the force of in, 



10 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

which is negative). It is often said that Psy- 
chology has to do with " the facts of conscious- 
ness only," or with " the phenomena of 
mind; " but who or what is the getter of the 
fact? The getter of the fact is also the fact 
gotten, the producer of the phenomenon is the 
phenomenon produced, the ordering principle is 
just what is ordered. 

This reflexive movement of the Ego is the 
essence of it, is indeed the Ego defining itself 
as self-active, and still further, as self-knowing. 
The learner in Psychology must wrestle with the 
conception of his science just here ; this double 
action of the Ego is the primal fact of it, as yet 
quite abstract and empty, but which is to fill 
itself with all the riches of concrete psychical life. 

The Ego is often called the conscious subject, 
and the fact just set forth is designated as con- 
sciousness. These terms we shall also use by 
the way. When I feel, or know, or wish, I am 
conscious that I feel, know, wish ; the Ego knows 
itself as feeling, knowing, wishing ; it can recog- 
nize itself in every mental activity ; still further 
it recognizes itself to be just that which recog- 
nizes itself, in which fact lies its definition, or 
indeed its self-definition. 

The beginner may have already wearied of. his 
first lesson in Psychology; the matter surely is 
not easy, especially at the start. But let him 
take courage, and have another grapple not only 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

with the definition of the Ego, but with the 
very idea of definition. The Ego is not to be 
defined by anything outside of itself, not by 
any major term for subsuming it, not by 
any middle term for mediating it, since all 
major terms and all middle terms are simply 
its own creatures. The Ego must define itself, 
and it is just that thing in this universe of ours 
which is capable of defining itself. All defini- 
tion goes back to self-definition as its ground; 
there could be no definition of anything unless 
there was a self-definer to give it. The Ego is 
supremely the self-definer, and as such defines 
itself ; that is, the Ego defines itself to be just 
that which defines itself. 

The student is not to forget himself in this 
study of Psychology, he also is in the psychical 
sweep and must not be left out. Not only must 
he confirm each statement by introspection, but 
must make actual the fact that he too is Ego by 
taking himself up into its movement. Thus when 
be defines the Ego as self-definer, what is he but 
the Ego defining itself just in that way? 

Very easy is it to dismiss all this as dialectical 
subtlety; such it is, but it cannot be evaded, 
since it is the subtle dialectic of consciousness 
itself, and lies at the root of the whole psychologi- 
cal process. Not simply the fleeting, changeful, 
contradictory phenomena of mind do we wish to 
know, but also what is in it abiding and eternal. 



12 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 



We shall now seek to grasp the process of the 
Ego as it primarily unfolds within itself, and as it 
essentially remains through all its activities. 
One may say that it is the author's Ego trying to 
project itself into an act of self-definition, and to 
formulate the same; still further, that it is the 
student's Ego trying to re-think that act and to 
identify the same with his own. In both cases it 
is manifestly the Ego defining itself, which is the 
movement of all Psychology, and which we shall 
find to be the principle lurking in many another 
science. Now, having said that the Ego was 
self-definition, let it proceed to define itself, for 
when lam defining my Ego, and you yours, it is 
merely the Ego defining the Ego. 

The Ego unfolds within itself through three 
stages : — 

First, it is simple, undivided, in immediate 
unity with itself. In this stage the Ego cannot 
yet know itself, it is unconscious, yet full of the 
possibility of consciousness. 

We may call such a stage the infantile, for the 
infant has an Ego, quiescent, slumbering, sunk 
in the wrappage of nature. The child is the 
potential man, and is always giving out intima- 
tions of his coming destiny ; he is continually 
anticipating manhood. These anticipations of 



INTBODUCTION. 13 

children are a mighty instrument of develop- 
ment in the hands of the skillful educator ; it is 
the great merit of Froebel that he grasped their 
import and organized them in his kindergarden. 
In sleep also the Ego is in an unconscious, 
immediate condition, unseparated within itself, 
the sport of its environment. Likewise in wak- 
ing states of the mature mind there are many 
degrees of unconsciousness, yet always with an 
impulse toward consciousness; indeed the Ego 
is forever hovering between the unconscious and 
the conscious, or between the less and the more 
conscious activity, having an inner force or motion 
to burst from the bud into the flower. Still in 
the present stage the Ego is, has being, though 
not yet thinking and self-relating ; it is blank 
identity of Self, without difference realized, 
though always impelled inwardly toward self- 
differentiation. 

Secondly, the Ego is the divided, the different ; 
it separates itself within itself and makes itself 
its own object. Now it is awake, and distin- 
guishes itself from the world; it has become 
conscious, the dualism has entered, and man can 
know. 

This twofoldness of the Ego is the matter to 
be grasped in the present stage. Look inwardly, 
you behold yourself; you are your own other, 



14 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

you have othered yourself ; that is, you have 
made yourself the object of yourself, you being 
still the subject. These two words, subject and 
object, coming to light at this point will hence- 
forth never drop out of our psychological 
vocabulary. Their birth-place is just here, they 
are sprung of the self-separation of the Ego, 
twins, Siamese twins, distinct individuals, yet 
everlastingly bound together. Historically, these 
two terms, originating with the Schoolmen, have 
descended into modern thought and have colored 
its entire course. They express the fundamental 
dualism of consciousness, and form the real 
starting-point of the psychology of our epoch. 
According to Hamilton, the term consciousness 
was unknown to ancient Plato and Aristotle, and 
was first employed by Des Cartes, the precursor 
of modern philosophy. 

If the previous stage was that of infancy and 
of paradisaical innocence, this second stage is 
the eating of the tree of knowledge, whereby 
dualism (_deuce, devil) enters and separates man 
from his primeval condition of simple unity with 
himself and with nature. Thus the start is made, 
according to the Hebrew account; Greek legend 
has many similar statements. Both the Iliad and 
the Odyssey spring from mighty breaches in the 
Hellenic soul, grand separations of the spirit, 
especially the separation of Occident from 
Orient, in whose throes Greece was born. 



. INTB0DUCT10N. 15 

The Ego is in itself the different, and hence 
the source of all notions of difference. I could 
not say that yonder house was different from the 
tree which stands before it, unless the fact lay 
in me. I could not think myself as different 
from you, if my Ego did not have difference 
within itself. I could not know an external 
world, I could not separate myself from this 
book, unless I had separation in me. Without 
this differentiation of the Self, there would be 
for me no multiplicity of nature, no shifting 
landscape, no variety of any kind ; I could not 
distinguish, could not analyze, could not know. 

Hence this second stage of the Ego will be 
found in every psychological process, small and 
great; we shall note it in each act of the Ego, 
which, in order to act, must separate itself. 

Thirdly, the Ego is the return out of separa- 
tion into unity with itself. This unity is distinct 
from the unity of the first stage; that was 
immediate, this is mediated, mediated by passing 
through the stage of difference. Thi3 unity, 
therefore, has the separation behind it, present 
but overcome ; the opposite of itself is now 
united and reconciled within itself. 

The Ego has now gone through the last stage 
of the process, which gives to it completeness. 
The cycle of the Ego we may name it, inasmuch 



16 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

as it, like a circular movement, has returned into 
itself. It is, however, as yet only the inner or 
subjective cycle, whose destiny is to make itself 
external (to outer or utter itself) in many forms 
throughout Psychology. 

It also gives the thought of restoration after 
estrangement ; it shows the nature of the return 
out of alienation, out of the fall, hinting the 
grand recovery of man, which is likewise his 
progressive movement. It is, in fact, the germ- 
inal process of the deepest spiritual experiences, 
and gives the basis of that inner harmony which 
comes from the resolution of the sharp discords 
of life. 

The story of Eden, which may, from one point 
of view, be regarded as the story of the devel- 
opment of the first human consciousness, has 
also its return in later legend; Paradise is lost 
through the grand estrangement, but this is over- 
come and Paradise is regained, and man comes 
back to his Eden. Especially in the great poem 
of Dante is this last form of the old Semitic 
legend wrought over and transfigured into a new 
spiritual utterance for the race. But the same 
movement and essentially the same thought are 
found in the Greek Mythus, notably in Homer, 
whose two poems, parts of one whole, may be 
respectively designated as the Separation and the 
Return. Undisguisedly the Odyssey is called 
by the poet himself a Eeturn; it is the story of 



INTBODUCTION. 17 

the return of the hero Ulysses from war, 
estrangement, negation. It is a very shallow 
view of the poem, which sees only the hero's 
external voyage back to his home, with some 
strange adventures thrown in by the way. In 
fact, the Iliad and the Odyssey together exhibit 
the purest movement of the Ego found in 
literature, clothed of course in the events of a 
world-historical epoch ; in Homer the infant 
Occident awakes and separates itself from 
the Orient. It may seem a very remote rela- 
tionship, but really it is a very near one 
when we say that what Homer did for the child- 
man of his age, Froebel has done for the actual 
child of our time : through play and song and 
story he has helped to lead it out of its uncon- 
scious state, and gradually to take possession of 
the culture of its race, and thus to become the 
heir of the future. 

We must, accordingly, seize the movement of 
the Ego as essentially the movement of Mythol- 
ogy, of History, of Literature. These are all 
products of mind seeking to utter itself and to 
become real in the world ; they all must bear the 
mind's impress. There is, accordingly, an ob- 
jective psychology which is the best illustration 
of the subjective one, veritably its necessary 
counterpart. 

Let us, however, turn back to the three stages 
above given; they must be grasped as a process, 

2 



18 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

always separating yet always uniting. The Ego 
is not a crystallized thing, nor is it capable of 
being forever fixed in a category, so that it may 
be handled in an external way. The Ego must 
always be re-thought, that is, re-created ; it can- 
not simply be remembered or be represented. 
However successful its formulation in words, it 
cannot thus live and move, for all speech is crys- 
tallization, while the Ego in its very nature is 
the process. Still the words we must have, just 
to transcend them; speech is a ladder by which 
the spirit climbs to its treasure-house beyond the 
ladder. 

II. 

The process of the Ego as just given is the 
germinal movement of Psychology, unfolding 
into all its distinctions, and yet uniting these dis- 
tinctions into the one principle, which is just this 
process of the Ego. For designating it from 
somewhat different points of view, we shall 
employ in the main four terms or categories, of 
which we shall give a brief exposition. These 
terms are subject-object, limit-transcending, inji- 
nile, psychosis. 

More terms might be added, but these will suffice 
to show the purpose and the usage of nomencla- 
ture in general. Psychology has to speak its own 
language ; least of all, can it borrow its vocabulary 
from Physiology without shooting into chaos-. 



INTBODUCTION. . 19 

But the student must not imagine that all he has 
to do is to write these terms down in a note- 
book, or to store them up in his memory. They 
must be generated anew every time they are 
employed, if they are to have any life. The Ego 
is not a dead thing, it can be grasped only in the 
living movement of itself. 

Hence the above analysis of the Ego must be 
followed at once by synthesis, which is not an 
external putting together, but a more than vital 
process, nay a thinking process. The second 
stage of the Ego is the analytic, separative, 
differentiating, which has to find its higher 
truth in the return to unity. The terms 
Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis, have been used 
a good deal in some systems of philosophy; 
they must at last obtain their justification in the 
movement of the Ego, and not in any separated, 
fixated condition. In Psychology there has to 
be life, more than life, there must be the self- 
active Thought. 

The Ego has been described by a number of 
thinkers as subject-object, which, when genetically 
thought out, is the true definition of it. Here is 
the division within itself ; the Ego separates itself 
from itself, holds itself up before itself, and 
looks at itself; then it sees that the two sides 
are one. Consider again your Ego; you project 
it before you as object and regard it; yet the 
object is the subject, is also the Ego regarding, 



20 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

both are one. The twain have been put together 
and called subject-object, an awkward but very 
useful term, in whose outward form we see 
division, and in the division we see unity. Or, 
to state the same thing as a process: the inner 
Ego throws itself outward and is external to 
itself, while still within. The hyphen is impor- 
tant, since it cancels the difference between the 
two sides, yet indicates it also as present, though 
overcome, ideated, ideal. 

A valuable point in regard to the term subject- 
object is, that it persists in remaining meaningless 
unless we go through the Ego's complete process 
in thinking it. The triple movement lurking in 
it must be seized, if it is to have any life or 
intelligent purpose. 

Another important predicate of the Ego is 
limit-transcending . The Ego reaches out beyond 
its bounds, it bursts its barriers, it cannot rest 
satisfied in limits, even its own limits. We saw 
that it would not remain in mere identity, but 
passed to difference ; just as little could it 
remain in difference. Limit-transcending is the 
Ego; if it posits a limit, straightway it must 
in some way assert itself as beyond the same, 
being the free, unbounded spirit. 

This characteristic is taken for granted in 
every form of education ; ignorance is a limit 
which can be transcended, unless all learning be 
a mistake. The child goes to school under the 



INTE OD UC TION, 2 1 

supposition that mind is limit-transcending; you 
are now reading this book of mine buoyed with 
the hope (which may be vain) of removing cer- 
tain limits of yours in Psychology. 

Upon the same characteristic rests the moral 
nature of man. Vice is a limit of which the Ego 
must be able to liberate itself, if we are to be 
held accountable. The Christian world holds 
that the worst sinner can repent, that the 
deepest and darkest limitation of the Ego this 
Ego can wipe out and become free again. Here 
we are suddenly brought face to face with what 
is often called the infinitude of man. 

Mind, Spirit, Ego, is designated as infinite. 
Not that it knows every particular object in the 
universe, not that it stretches itself externally and 
extends bevond the sun and stars, filling all 
space, but that it can rise above its own finitude, 
and can assert its infinite and eternal nature. 

Undoubtedly, there has been much vague talk 
about the infinite spirit of man. Such talk, if 
not attaining quite the infinite, certainly reaches 
the indefinite with supreme success. But what 
is here meant by the infinite nature of the mind 
can be made definite by the process of thinking. 
The Ego has its bound, is finite, finds its limit 
on many sides in error, sin, ignorance. But it 
is also aware that it can pass its bound, that its 
limit is in reality no limit, is not fixed against it 
from the outside. 



22 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Employing these terms still further, we may 
say that the Ego is both infinite and finite ; its 
very finitude is self-canceling ; its movement is 
the movement of the Finite, which, to be true 
to itself, has to put an end to itself, and become 
infinite. To use other terms, the limit is nega- 
tion, but negation when fully thought negates 
itself and becomes positive. 

The process of the Ego through its three stages 
is the Psychosis. Here we introduce a word 
which will remain with us to the end of the 
present book, a word which expresses the active, 
unitary principle in all our science. As the 
Psyche is the soul of man, so the Psychosis is 
the soul of Psychology. 

It is a fundamental mistake to suppose that 
Psychology deals merely in difference and dis- 
tinction, that it is a dividing of the mind into 
faculties and activities, as if these were the 
rooms of a huge apartment house. The Ego 
has unquestionably division as one of its phases, 
but its process is to get out of division and dis- 
tinctions and return to unity. A psychological 
treatise which gives only distinctions, contradicts 
therein the Ego itself, which must also cancel 
distinctions, even its own distinctions. The Ego 
cannot be held fast in a state of separation, else 
it were not itself, at least not its whole living 
self, but merely some dead fragment of itself. 
Thus analysis the acutest can never reach the 



INTRODUCTION. 23 

total Ego, though analysis is certainly one phase 
of its process, which has, however, to cancel 
analysis in order to be the process. 

The Psychosis is, therefore, always to come 
after distinction the most minute and classifica- 
tion the most sweeping, after the smallest and 
largest divisions of Psychology, in order that the 
dislocated and anatomized Ego be restored to 
unity. To be sure all this will require mental 
effort, especially will it demand the limit-trans- 
cending act which has been mentioned. Lan- 
guage often stands in the way of the Psychosis, 
yet the latter has to be formulated in words in 
order to be imparted. Words are always in 
danger of getting fixed, crystallized, and so 
destroy the very process which they are de- 
signed to express. Language is essentially the 
uttered, the externalized, the separated ; it is the 
product of the second stage of the Ego and must 
be transcended by the spirit. If I am sunk in 
the mere forms of speech, I cannot employ them 
aright, I am their slave, the Ego loses its free 
movement which is just the thing to be uttered. 
The writer who fills and overfills language is 
really the master of it ; he compels it to express 
the Psychosis. This is true of literary composi- 
tion, far truer of psychological writing, which 
too often slays the soul in trying to tell of it. 

Accordingly we shall endeavor to lay the 
Psychosis under the spell of words, well knowing 



24 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the difficulty, and also well knowing that the 
most successful formulation will be dead to the 
reader, till he creates it anew, that is, re-thinks 
it by an immediate act of his own Ego. Noth- 
ing can be more lifeless than the corpse of Ps}'- 
chology cut up into innumerable distinctions with 
out the Psychosis; the dead human body is hardly 
so repugnant. There must be the new life, nay 
the new genesis, which makes whole ; still we 
must not forget that distinction has its place in 
the process of the Ego. 

We have now mentioned four terms which may 
reasonably be employed in mental science — - 
subject-object, limit-transcending, infinite, the 
Psychosis. It is to be noted that all these terms 
are to be understood in substantially the same 
sense, yet they exhibit their contents in different 
ways. They are points on the circumference of 
a circle which have the one common center, 
though each has a separate direction toward that 
center. Each requires a special act of thought 
to reduce it to unity. The Ego has to go through 
its process in order to find itself in these terms ; 
there has, in each case, to be a Psychosis in order 
to identify the Psychosis. No definition of terms 
is this in the ordinary sense ; it is the Ego reveal- 
ing itself under different forms as its own single 
process. 

To mark the distinction in these terms just a 
little in passing: subject-object indicates more 



INTRODUCTION. 25 

the Ego with division present but overcome — 
ideality ; limit-transcending indicates more the 
Ego as reaching over its bound — aspiration ; 
infinite indicates more the Ego as coming to its 
true Self in thus reaching over its bound — 
attainment; Psychosis insists upon the unifi- 
cation of these distinctions, however minute or 
however colossal, in the one process of the Ego. 
For if the Ego be order and not chaos, it must 
have a plan; this plan must be its own, its very 
Self, and recognizable by itself. Underneath 
these distinctions, accordingly, and indeed 
underneath all distinction whatever, lies the 
Psychosis. 

Historical. The previous view of the Ego is 
by no means a new doctrine; it is substantially 
the way in which man has looked at himself from 
the beginning, that is, since he began to regard 
himself as a self-conscious being. The poetry 
of the race gives many a glimpse of this view. 
Mythology is much occupied with it also. 
Especially have the religions of the world taken 
hold of it and incorporated it into their systems 
of belief; under diverse shapes the Divine Ego 
is held to be threefold, and thus to manifest 
itself to man. Hence comes the sacred nature of 
the number three among so many peoples, it is 
God's number, the quantitative form of Spirit. 
In philosophy the same tendency can be observed, 
particularly among those philosophers who hold 



26 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

to a spiritual view of the world. Ancient Plato 
is famous for his trichotomy, or threefold move- 
ment of mind ; modern Hegel organizes his vast 
system on the same lines. Superstition has 
undoubtedly misapplied the number three, and 
fancy has capriciously played with it, so that it 
has been at times discredited ; moreover it can 
be used in the most external fashion and clapped 
on anywhere to anything. Still it has also its 
deeply internal principle which cannot be ignored. 

Modern philosophy moves about the develop- 
ment of the Ego as the center, or self-conscious- 
ness. Thinking and Being are the two opposites 
which are to be reconciled by a philosophic view 
of the world. Cogito, ergo sum is the key-note, 
or rather short overture, out of which all suc- 
ceeding harmonies and discords are unfolded. 
Hence it is that modern philosophy is occupied 
with the psychological problem, while ancient 
philosophy was occupied with the ontological, as 
has often been observed. 

The culmination of the modern movement 
took place in Germany and called forth the 
remarkable line of thinkers from Kant to Hegel. 
Among these it was Fichte who developed the 
doctrine of the Ego to its highest subjective 
potence, and brought into use much of its ter- 
minology. Fichte, therefore, represents a most 
important phase of the psychological advance 
of our age. 



WTBODUCTION. 27 

But against this movement, strongly idealistic, 
a reaction has arisen, especially in Germany. As 
Psychology is at present in the midst of this 
reaction, we may give a little account of it. The 
chief of the reactionary influences has entered 
pedagogy and springs from Herbart, who in his 
work on Psychology denies explicitly the third 
stage of the Ego, or the return into Self. 
That is, Herbart sees in the process of the 
subject-object only an infinite series, not a circu- 
lar movement, or a process self-returning. His 
method of refutation is by substituting object 
for subject and subject for object in the defini- 
tion of the Ego as subject-object, and thereby 
producing an empty but endless bandying of 
words from one side to the other. It is manifest 
that Herbart gets only one stage of the process 
of the Ego, namely, difference ; he holds that the 
Ego, having posited difference is compelled to 
stick to it, and that the return can only be a new 
separation. Thus no complete identification is 
possible after difference ; but that the different 
by its very nature must differ from itself and 
therein cancel itself into a new unity by its own 
inner movement, is something that Herbart does 
not see or ignores. 

Still the self-identity of the Ego is too patent 
a fact to be wholly cast away. So, according to 
Herbart, the Ego must know itself not as other 
but simply as itself, or must know self as simple 



28 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

identity, which can have no object in itself. The 
Ego is not subject-object, but subject only ; so 
difference is excluded from within, and abstract 
identity is asserted of the Ego. 

Difference has, accordingly, to come from the 
outside, from the world, and to determine the 
Ego, which is thus not the self-determined, and 
thereby the determiner of the external world, 
but is itself the externally determined. Herbart 
denies self-activity to the Ego, which has simply 
the power of self-preservation against the im- 
pinging masses of sensations and percepts. 
These incoming materials meet the Ego with its 
total mass, and have a collision, the result of 
which is a settling down into order, as two 
streams of water coming together show conflict 
at first and then adjust themselves according to 
mechanics and statics. The mind also has its 
science of mechanics and statics ; the Ego is the 
reservoir of all former percepts which may be 
considered to be in a state of equilibrium till a 
new percept arrives and disturbs the equilibrium. 

There can be no doubt that Herbart, just 
through his one-sided stress, has called the 
stronger attention to the ordering of percepts by 
the help of the percepts already making up the 
content of the Ego. Herein lies the great value 
of his doctrine of Apperception, which is a sub- 
stantial addition both to Psychology and to Edu- 
cation. Yet even in Apperception it is the mind 



1NTB0D UC TION. 29 

observing mind, standing back and looking at it- 
self, as it were, thus showing the return into self, 
which is the very process of the Ego. Thus Her- 
bart in spite of his refutation will often be found 
unconsciously taking for granted the Ego as 
subject-object or as self-activity. 

Hence in the proper place we shall introduce 
Apperception into the grand total movement of 
Psychology, and do justice to Herbart's impor- 
tant contribution, though we have to think that 
his doctrine of the Ego is a mistake. Physiolog- 
ical Psychology is also a reaction against the 
earlier German philosophy ; but as it looks at the 
Ego purely from the physiological side, it never 
gets to the heart of the problem, though it gives 
many important hints in reference to the physical 
antecedents and consequences of mental activity, 
and makes many interesting measurements of the 
quanitative element, which also belongs to mind. 
From a hygienic point of view physiological 
Psychology has made most valuable contributions 
to education ; in this regard, we may say it is 
epoch-making. 

III. 

Already we have seen the pure movement of 
the Ego within itself, as subject-object. Now it 
will pass to a new phase: it will posit the non- 
Ego or the external world; this it will first 
recognize as different from itself, and then 



30 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

recognize as its own, which is the act of knowl- 
edge. Still further, the individual Ego, through 
this cognition of the external object, rises into a 
recognition of the Universal, Creative Ego. At 
this point, however, Psychology begins to pass 
out of its sphere, and reveals its connection 
with another science, usually called Ontology. 
Eecognition is a fundamental thought in Psychol- 
ogy, assuming three different forms, all of which 
we shall consider. 

The Ego as simple subject-object is the return 
to Self, which is consciousness. Again the Ego 
is one with itself, it has passed from subjective 
difference into unity with itself, which we desig- 
nated as the third stage of the Ego. This unity, 
accordingly, opposes itself to difference and thus 
asserts the same ; it could not be the opposite of 
difference unless the latter were in it and at 
work; unity is just as different from difference 
as difference is different from unity. Thus the 
conscious Ego projects into existence a new 
object separated from itself, which is the non- 
Ego. 

The new difference is not that of the second 
stage above described, not the subjective, inter- 
nal one; it is not the difference within Self but 
outside of Self. The object is not now the one 
in subject-object, but is the complete negation of 
subject-object or Ego; that is, the object is now 
non-Ego. 



INTB OD UC TION. 3 1 

So the Ego, having reached consciousness of 
itself in its first process, posits an objective 
world outside of itself, the opposite of itself. 
The difference, previously internal, is now pro- 
jected out of the Ego and made external. A 
realm of externality thus arises, which we shall 
hereafter find to be not merely external to the 
Ego, but external to itself. 

We may trace a little further the new object. 
It, as already stated, is the product of the 
difference from subject-object, it is the other of 
the Ego. Yet it is also the object of the same, 
it is the thing looked at, the fact or the phe- 
nomenon which the Ego holds up before itself. 
In spite of the difference, therefore, the Ego 
identifies the new object with its own process as 
subject-object; it preserves the difference ideally 
by overcoming it and making the new object its 
own, recognizing the same as its own object. 

A step further we may carry the movement : 
the process of the object will show the same 
three stages as the process of the subject — 
simple, separated, unified. First, the object 
will show itself in simple, unrelated unity with 
itself, as any isolated thing in the world of sense ; 
secondly, it will hold itself distinct from the 
subject, maintaining its difference therefrom, as 
in a conscious act of perception ; thirdly, the ob- 
ject will- show itself as one with the subject, 
unified with subject-object, as in the completed act 



32 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of knowledge. The destiny of the object as non- 
Ego or the externa] world is to be known, that is, 
to be identified through and with the process of 
the Ego. 

Herewith we come upon a fundamental thought. 
All knowing is the seeing of this process of the 
Ego as the essential fact of the object. The 
Ego beholds the world as itself, then it knows 
the same, and is identical with it, having canceled 
the difference between Ego and non-Ego. For 
the Ego is subject-object, such is the mold into 
which it pours the universe. The knowing Ego, 
therefore, identifies the world with itself, or, we 
may also say, it recognizes the external object to 
be one with itself. Still this external object 
remains, it is not annihilated by being known, 
rather is it ideally preserved. The difference 
still holds, even when the non-Ego is turned back 
and translated into the Ego, as it has to be, if 
it reach its true inner significance. Such we may 
call, in general, cognition; the Ego cancels the 
difference between itself and the world, beholding 
in the latter its own process. 

In order, however, to go to the bottom of this 
matter, we must observe that the cognitive act here 
unfolded, is really recognitive; that is, the Ego 
recognizes itself in the external object, it identi- 
fies the other as its own. If I am to know the 
world, I am to find it in my own Ego, for Ihavo 
nothing else to know with ; without such an in- 



INTBODUCTION. 33 

strument, the world is alien to me and unattain- 
able, since I cannot get that which I have no 
means of getting. All cognition is essentially 
recognition. 

But may we not conjecture that there is some- 
thing in the world which lies outside of all possi- 
ble forms of the Ego, something which is indeed 
unknowable? There is no means of proving any 
such fact, or indeed of perceiving it, for what 
else have we to perceive with but the Ego? 
There cannot be even a sensation without the 
activity of self; you have only your knower to 
know with. Still such an unknowable something 
has crept into modern philosophy, where it 
creates vast confusion, for is it not the contradic- 
tion of all thought? When you say that this 
matter is unknowable, you must know something 
very important about it in order to be able to 
make the statement. The world must be pene- 
trable by thought. Why? Because it is a 
thought. 

All cognition is recognition. But, though I 
may know the world, I am aware that I did not 
make it; I find it before me, and identify it, I 
recognize it ; my relation to it thus is theoretical. 
But when the Ego identifies it as Ego, we know 
it as not our own Ego ; for this reason we once 
called it the realm of the non-Ego. The world 
is object, still not the object found in our subject- 
object. It is, however, object, and must have a 

3 



34 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

subject to correspond; the question then is, what 
is that Ego of which the external universe is the 
true object? We are compelled to posit a 
World-Ego, which is also subject-object. Thus 
we have an Ego whose object is the world, in- 
cluding me, including my particular Ego recog- 
nizing such an universal Ego. 

The complete development of Psychology 
carries us up to the Divine Ego which created 
the world, or whose difference, otherness, outer- 
ness is the external presence of nature in which 
man is placed, and which he has to know, that is, 
recognize as Ego. Not so much man as man's 
Ego is the highest of creation, being God's image, 
that is, the image of His Ego. God is also 
subject-object, His objective element being the 
universe, which His Ego created by its own 
inner necessity, and which the human Ego 
recognizes as Ego, and so comes to knowledge. 

In this connection it may be remarked that the 
difference, separation, otherness of the Divine 
Ego is actual, is a posited distinction, and has 
immediate reality as object; that is, God's think- 
ing and willing are one, thought is deed with 
Him. Man's stage of separation, however, is 
subjective, ideal, in his Ego, which he has to 
make real through his will ; he finds his objective 
world already made, which he has to make over 
and thus objectify himself. We may conceive of 
the thought in this fashion: God plans and His 



INTBODUCTION. 35 

plan is the universe ; man plans, and his plan 
has to transform through volition some part of 
the universe already existent. It was the great 
insight of the Schoolmen that Intellect and Will 
become one in God. 

Very remote all this probably appears, but it 
is intimately bound up with our science. When 
my Ego knows the external object, that knowl- 
edge rests upon the fact of a World-Ego, the 
Divine, the Universal Person ; it recognizes the 
same as essentially one with itself. Every act 
of my knowing pre- supposes the Divine as ex- 
istent, as object not only to me but also to itself. 
Really that is just what I know — nothing more, 
nothing less. From this height of outlook we 
can see that our Ego acts with the Divine Ego in 
knowing, co-operates, as it were, with God, 
doing over again what deity does. Thus is man 
truly godlike in knowing, the image of the 
Creator. The noble Malebranche must have had 
some such thought in mind when he uttered his 
famous statement that " we see all things in 
God." 

The great point to which we always come 
back in the present discussion, is this : How 
does the Ego as simple subject-object pass to 
the external world which is non-Ego? Note 
again: the world is object, and hence corre- 
sponds to object in the simple Ego (or subject- 
object) ; but the world is also object to its own 



36 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego or subject, just as the object in my Ego has 
its subject. So we transfer the conception of 
our Ego with its subject-object to a World-Ego 
with its subject-object. The fact of the world 
being objective necessitates its having a subject 
also, an Ego which is the counterpart of it — 
the Universal, the Divine. Simply to know the 
external object is cognition, which deepens into 
recognition when we know the same object as Ego. 

I observe the rain, the descent of the stream, 
each seems to be falling all the time. But I 
next observe evaporation, the rise of water from 
the earth into the cloud, which is borne by the 
winds to the upper air or mountain tops, where 
it is condensed and falls again. Now I have the 
explanation, I see the total meteorological process 
of nature, which is an external image of the pro- 
cess of my Ego ; previously I was not satisfied, I 
could not rest content with a part of the cycle, 
which in me was whole. When I can bring any 
phase of nature into its cycle, I understand it, 
I explain it ; I make it correspond to the process 
of my Ego. Still I do not make the process of 
nature, there is another will in it — Whose? 
A different Ego from mine has this entire out- 
ward world as its object, namely the Divine, 
which I have ultimately to recognize as the com- 
plement and fulfillment of all my knowledge. 

Thus a theistic (not theologic) strand runs 
through all Psychology, much against the com- 



INTBODUGTION. 37 

mon view of the matter. To-day this science of 
the soul is often said to have no soul ; but our 
Psychology has not only a soul but a God. As 
little can Homer do without his deities as Psy- 
chology can do without its divine element. 

It will be well to look back and to summarize 
what we have learned. We began with the con- 
scious Ego, which recognized itself as its own 
immediate object, and this object as itself; thus 
the recognition is subjective. Then in the cog- 
nition of the external object we found the Ego 
recognizing the non-Ego or the world as itself, 
which we may name the objective recognition. 
Still further, the Ego recognizes the non-Ego to 
be not only itself, but also to be the object of the 
Divine Ego, through the world rising to deity, 
who is now recognized by the individual Ego as 
its other or opposite, that is, as absolute Ego. 
For the true non-Ego is found to be not merely 
the external world, but an Ego which is the 
opposite or the negation of the individual or 
finite Ego, which cancels within itself all dif- 
ference, separation, finitude. Such is absolute 
recognition or the recognition of the Absolute as 
Ego, as Divine Personality. 

We have now unfolded the three Recognitions, 
which we shall briefly put together, that the 
reader may make his own the complete move- 
ment of the Ego before proceeding to the more 
detailed development of Psychology. 



38 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

1. Subjective Recognition. — The Ego di- 
vides itself within itself into subject and object, 
and recognizes the latter as itself — the individual 
Ego as conscious. 

2. Objective Recognition. — The Ego separates 
the non-Ego (the world) from itself, and then 
proceeds to recognize the same as its own or as 
Ego — cognition, the knowing of the object. 
Thus the Ego makes over the world into itself, 
so that it knows the same. 

3. Absolute Recognition. — The Ego recog- 
nizes the world as the object or expression of an 
Ego whose thought is reality, who knows him- 
self a3 object, and creates the world as his other. 

The total process as above set forth may be 
grasped as follows : The individual Ego, through 
knowing the objective world, mediates itself with 
the Divine Ego. Psychology, as the science of 
the evolution of the Ego, has to give the account 
of this process, and therein takes its true place. 

Also a mighty Psychosis moves through the 
three Recognitions and joins them into one pro- 
cess, in which the human Ego rises up and inter- 
links with the Divine, in which man-conscious- 
ness by its own inner necessity is seen to find its 
fulfillment in God-consciousness. 

Historical. It was the work of Des Cartes to 
bring into modern philosophy the significance of 
the self-conscious Ego. In his famous doctrine, 
i* think, therefore I am, he makes thinking the 



INTRODUCTION. 39 

ground of being. By his / think he means the 
Ego thinking itself or self-consciousness, as is 
shown by his answer to Gassendi's objections. 1 
walk, therefore I. am, will not do, there has to be 
the self-thinking Ego in the proposition before 
being can be predicated. I think is the center 
of my being, and thought is the fountain of 
existence. 

This identity of thinking and being — " the 
most interesting idea of modern times," accord- 
ing to Hegel — was not developed by Des Cartes, 
he did not unfold the Ego in its process with the 
non-Ego. Still he saw what it involved ; a dim 
intimation he had that the self-knowing Ego of 
man had its necessary complement in the Divine 
Ego. Hence springs his effort to prove the 
existence of God. The two extremes he saw, 
and he felt their connection, but he did not sup- 
ply the mediating thought, which is indeed the 
development of philosophy since his time. Still 
he turned on the waters and gave direction to 
the stream ; the problem, however, remains and 
has to be solved by every person in his own 
fashion or stay unsolved. 

Des Cartes' Thinking and Being have unfolded 
into subject and object, Ego and non-Ego, self- 
consciousness and externality. Then he has 
sought to bring into view the divine counterpart 
to human thinking by his argument for the exist- 
ence of God. 



40 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Let us recapitulate in this connection the 
foregoing movement once more before leaving 
it. My Ego seizes the world as external object, 
subjects it, makes it subject, knows it. But the 
knowledge or identification of the world is not 
completed by my identifying it with my subject; 
the world must also be taken as the object of its 
own Ego (or subject-object), for I am aware that 
it is not the created object of my Ego ; I may 
know the world, but I did not make it. So I 
rise to the Divine Ego (or subject-object), of 
which the world is the true object, as supple- 
mentary to and involved in every act of my 
cognition. 

Des Cartes has the two sides, the theistic and 
the egoistic (or subjective), but he by no means 
unites them. His theistic side first unfolded, 
and called forth Malebranche, who saw all 
things in God, and Spinoza who saw God in all 
things, and thereby jeoparded the existence of 
the individual. 

The egoistic side of Des Cartes (his cogito) 
developed later, its legitimate child being Fichte 
with his doctrine of the Ego and non-Ego. To 
Hegel belongs the distinction of having made 
what appears to be the final synthesis of the 
dualism which started so emphatically with Des 
Cartes, and which since the latter' s time has 
determined the general character of philosophy. 
It is plain that this character is largely psycho- 



INTBODUCTION. 41 

logical, and the attempt to banish all philosophy 
out of psychology in recent years is on the face 
of it futile and absurd. 

IV. 

The Ego having mastered the non-Ego or 
objective world, and identified the same with it- 
self (which is the knowing of the same), pro- 
ceeds to know itself as this knowing of the 
objective world, formulates and orders such 
knowledge, which is its own process of knowing. 
This gives the Science of the Ego, constructed, 
of course, by the Ego itself. 

We have seen the principle of the Ego's 
activity — its threefold movement, which it must 
manifest if it act at all. We are now to pass to 
the science of the Ego, which is the Ego grasp- 
ing its own order throughout all its phenomena, 
and thus setting forth the system of itself. Such 
a science differs from all other sciences ; the lat- 
ter are ordered from without by the Ego, while 
this science is ordered from within, the Ego be- 
ing the thing ordered and the orderer. It always 
runs double, yet in unity with itself. If we say 
that Psychology is the science of the facts of the 
Ego, we must not conceive of the Ego as simply 
a mass of facts which are to be arranged by some 
power outside of themselves, as is the case with 
the facts of Natural Science. The mind knows 
the object, then it knows itself knowing the 



42 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

object ; this second knowledge ordered gives the 
science of knowledge. 

Or, to give a little different turn to the 
matter : the Ego is the knower, is the known, 
and, chiefly, is the knower knowing himself as 
the knower of the known. 

The Ego, as the science of itself and of its 
own phenomena, will unfold through three 
stages. 

I. It is the immediate psychical act — 
Psyche — as a unit; the single, complete, men- 
tal thrust or discharge, before all division and 
classification, of which this act is the source 
and the material. It must always be remem- 
bered, and hereafter it will often be enforced, 
that each psychical act requires the whole mind, 
and involves implicitly all psychical acts, which 
might be shown by a sharp analysis. Still the 
psychical act is also special, has its individual 
character and relation; so it has to be ordered, 
or rather orders itself, in reference to other 
psychical acts. This brings us to the next. 

II. It is Psychology, which is the science of 
the Ego in all its divisions. This is the sphere of 
separation, which gives us the so-called faculties, 
the special activities of the Ego. Formerly the 
science of mind dealt chiefly in division and 
classification, and this element is not to be dis- 
pensed with at any time. Still the Ego must not 
stop with mere division, which is but one stage 



INTRODUCTION. 43 

of its threefold movement. The fundamental 
divisions of Psychology are Feeling, Will, 
Intellect, which are seen to correspond to the 
three stages of the Ego. 

III. It is the Psychosis. Already we have 
emphasized the significance of this term and shall 
often do so again. After the divisions of 
Psychology must always come the unification 
of the Psychosis ; we are never to rest content 
with laying out the mind into so many faculties 
and defining them. The mind is a whole in every 
one of its special acts, even the smallest, and the 
science of mind must in some way express just 
this total process of it amid its finest sub-divisions. 
We are inclined to affirm that the chief problem 
of Psychology at present is to get a method, 
which, while giving the distinctions of the science 
their full validity, will at the same time preserve 
the unity of the mind and preserve it alive. 
Nothing is more certain than that the mere ana- 
lyzing and arranging of the mental activities one 
after the other leaves us with a dead science, 
which is verily " Psychology without a soul." 

Our age is called often the analytic age, and it 
must divide and sub-divide and go on refining to 
a microscopic minuteness in all things. Undoubt- 
edly most books on Psychology are in the habit 
of protesting that " the mind is one " while its 
activities are varied; still they give us always the 
division, and very seldom the unity, especially 



44 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the living unity, which is the process of the Ego. 
The Psychosis is the return out of separation to 
the oneness of mind, yet the separation is not 
lost but taken along as ideal or as a moment. 
Our science is not a row of dried sticks, each one 
apart, repellent, lifeless; on the contrary each 
activity is itself and the total movement of the 
Ego likewise. Yery subtle is the Psychosis, not 
to be grasped merely as some abstract conception, 
still less as an image: it presupposes an Ego 
identifying the process of the Ego with itself; it 
is your Ego seizing its own movement in any 
psychical act and identifying the same. 

The relation between Psychology and the 
Psychosis may be illustrated by the relation be- 
tween Theology and Religion. The one is the 
expression of the conception of the Divine in 
formica, proposition, dogma — a necessary ex- 
pression, by the way; the other is the soul's 
unity wiih God in worship. Theology is lnrgely 
a matter of definition, so is Psychology ; through 
definition Theology becomes separative, becomes 
many Theologies. Religion, on the other hand, 
lays stress on the unity, feels the one spirit in 
all religious belief, from the humblest to the 
highest. So the Psychosis is the Ego unifying 
all the distinctions of Psychology; it is the one 
active soul in all the manifold psychical activities. 
What Religion is to Theology, what Justice is to 
Jurisprudence, what the Spirit is to the Letter, 



IN TB OD UC TION. 45 

is the Psychosis to Psychology. Even this last 
distinction the Psychosis annuls — the distinction 
between itself and Psychology, and takes up the 
latter into the one grand process with itself. 

The threefold division of the science of Psy- 
chology will be seen to be fundamental, spring- 
ing from the nature of the Ego, whose activity is 
threefold. This triple movement the Ego im- 
prints itself upon all processes of knowledge, or 
rather beholds itself in them, since all knowing is 
the seeing such a movement in the object, which, 
till it be thus seen and ordered, is chaotic or un- 
known. We have no other instrument of cogni- 
tion but the Ego, which must work after its own 
nature, and unfold its material according to its 
own law. Hence the triplicity running through 
the manifold distinctions of Psychology, all of 
them bearing the impress of the Ego as simple, 
as divided, as unified. 

There are, however, difficulties in such a pro- 
cedure. As it seems to put the free spirit into 
limits, into fetters if you choose to say so, the 
latter protests and begins to assert its limit- 
transcending nature. This protest has its validity 
and must always be met not with dogmatic asser- 
tion, but with reconciling thought. If the above 
process were a scheme external to the Ego, and 
if the latter were forced into it from the outside, 
the whole thing would have to be cast away, not 
only as useless but as spirit-destroying. 



46 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Yet spirit has an order, of all things in the 
universe it is just the orderer, and of itself 
too. It rises above limits, but this rise is its 
principle and not its chaos. If it has a scheme, 
that scheme is its own, and is self-imposed. If 
it has a law, that law has been enacted by itself, 
is, in fact, just itself. The Ego, like man, is 
free, not because it is ungoverned but because it 
is self-governed. It must, in its science, com- 
bine development with order, going perpetually 
beyond itself, yet just therein coming to itself. 
The Ego must have in its system both liberty and 
law, excluding inner caprice and outer chaos. 

The empirical method has the habit of catch- 
ing up an isolated fact, analyzing it, and placing 
it under some rubric in an external fashion. 
Such a procedure may have to pass for a time in 
physical science, but it will not do in mental 
science, in which the observed fact is just the 
observer observing, in which the object is one 
with the subject. Psychology has too often been 
constructed from without, division after division 
is introduced according to the caprice of the 
psychologist without any inner unfolding. The 
science is not free, not true till it construct itself 
according to its own internal principle. 

Psychology must always be supplemented by 
the Psychosis. If the former be handed over 
merely to arbitrary analysis, or to unbridled 
experimentation, it shows itself chaotic, or at 



INTRODUCTION. 47 

most put together in an external order, more or 
less alien to its true nature. It must have 
analysis and division, but it must also have the 
return to unity, and this unity must not be 
defunct, something abstract and finished, but 
living and moving, yea, self-active in its own 
process. 

Looked at from the present point of view, 
" the old Psychology" was in the main divis- 
ive, a so-called faculty-Psychology, though it 
always protested that the mind was one. In the 
main " the new Psychology" is hostile to the 
faculty principle ; but, in breaking down the old 
order, it leads us only too often into chaos 
instead of the new order, which we are all hop- 
ing for. We must have the specialization, the 
faculties, if you please; we must also have the 
unification, not as an abstract caput mortuum, but 
as the active principle in all division. 

Let us grasp in a brief statement the main 
sweep of the present Introduction. First is set 
forth the inner movement of the Ego as subject- 
object. Secondly, the Ego posits the different, 
the non-Ego, and then proceeds to recognize it as 
one with itself, which act is the fundamental act 
of knowing, and which manifests itself in the 
three Recognitions. Thirdly, this act of know- 
ing becomes science when the Ego grasps the 
same as its own movement, formulating and 
ordering itself in the process of knowing the 



48 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

outer and inner worlds. The science of the Ego 
will manifest itself in three forms, the psychical, 
the psychological, and the psychosis — distinct, 
yet as one. 

This science is what we are next to consider in 
its detailed movement. 



INTELLECT. 

The act of the Ego preliminary to the move- 
ment of Intellect is the separative one, which 
act is the division into itself and the external 
world, or into Ego and non-Ego. 

This dualism shows, in general, the chasm 
which the mind is to bridge by cognition. In- 
tellect starts with the external object as some- 
thing apart, separate, wholly outside ; the process 
of the latter is the getting rid of such an external 
condition, and the becoming internal or known. 
The object is alien to the Ego at the beginning, 
is unknown, or rather is known as unknown. 
Such is the preparatory stage which is to be 
transcended. 

The general movement of the Ego in Intellect 
is to overcome the separation between itself aud 

4 (49) 



50 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the world, and to identify the latter with itself, 
whereby it cognizes the world as its own. 

In this manner the Ego masters the alien- 
ation of the external object from itself and 
recognizes the same to be itself through 
all separation and difference. Again we must 
note that cognition is fundamentally recog- 
nition. When I know this house, I recognize 
the Ego in it, the idea of the builder. Suppose 
that we, by some process, could deftly jerk this 
idea out of the house, what would it become? 
It would fall to pieces, it would suddenly lapse 
into chaos. That which makes this house, then, 
is the idea, not the brick and mortar, wood, iron, 
glass. It is the idea which supports the ceiling 
above our heads, the idea, to be sure, control- 
ling the materials of structure. Now if I am to 
know this house, I must get hold of its idea, and 
identify it, and so make it one with my Ego. 
There is nothing else here for me to know; the 
Ego which brought forth the product I must 
commune with, and see its movement in its work. 
Then I know the work and not till then. The 
Ego cognizes the thing, and therein recognizes 
itself in the thing. 

The Ego in Intellect starts with the object 
which it translates into itself; the Ego in Will 
starts with itself which it translates into the 
object. Knowledge identifies the object with 
Self, Volition identifies Self with the object. 



INTELLECT. 51 

Intellect utters itself in a cognition, Will utters 
itself in a deed ; the one is often called theoret- 
ical, the other practical. 

To complete the process of the Ego in this 
sphere, we must add Feeling, which is the imme- 
diate stage of the Ego before it becomes conscious 
of its separation from the bodily organism ; still 
it acts in undivided unity with the same. Then 
the Ego separating itself within itself and utter- 
ing (outering) itself as object is Will. Finally, 
the Ego internalizing the object and making the 
same itself is the Intellect. These three — 
Feeling, Will, Intellect — constitute the funda- 
mental division of Psychology. Yet they are the 
one process of the Ego, they are at the same 
time the Psychosis. 

This threefold division of the science has been 
often assailed by psychologists, still it keeps its 
place, and cannot well be superseded. It 
originated from a true insight into the movement 
of the Ego, and is vouched for by a long line of 
sages, thinkers, and poets. One may find it 
suggested by ancient Homer, though in an 
imaginative, mythical form ; it is explicitly 
announced by Plato in his trichotomy; it is 
employed by Kant and Hegel. It has taken 
deep hold on the religious mind both in the 
Orient and Occident, which embodies it in many 
a symbol. 

It should be observed that this primary dis- 



52 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tinction of the mind carries with it all further 
distinction. If the Ego be threefold in itself, 
then every activity of it must manifest the same 
triplicity. It must think in its own way, accord- 
ing to its own scheme, if it think at all. The result 
will be that the divisions of the science will not 
be capricious but ordered ; they can not be made 
from the outside, the psychologist cannot drag 
them in as he pleases, increase or diminish their 
number according to momentary whim or in- 
sight. The science must develop according to 
its law, whatever be the psychologist's caprices; 
only when he follows and utters this law, is he 
truly scientific. 

The objection will often be heard that such an 
ordered movement of the Ego is limiting, cramps 
the spirit's full activity, destroys its freedom by 
forcing it into a predetermined cast-iron system. 
No more than to obey the law of the land destroys 
the civil freedom of the citizen. Indeed without 
the law there would be no true freedom, but only 
caprice of the individual and with it utter dis- 
order and final anarchy. Government there 
must be ; it should not, however, come from 
without, for that is political subjection, if not 
servitude; it must come from within, that is, it 
must be self-government, in which we all believe. 

Now this proposed ordering of the Ego is its 
own, its law is made by itself for itself, it is self- 
legislative. A famous statement concerning free 



INTELLECT. 53 

government declared that it was of the people 
by the people for the people. The free move- 
ment of the Ego must not be made anarchic, it 
too must be an ordering of itself by itself for 
itself. 

Still further we may assert the freedom of the 
Ego when its full process is rightly grasped. 
The very scheme of it makes it limit-transcend- 
ing ; it posits difference, limitation, restraint, 
but it also posits the return out of these to unity. 
The Psychosis is the canceling of all bounds of 
the Ego and the revealing of it as the unbounded, 
as that which can transcend its own bound. 
Freedom thus is the very law of the Ego, the 
necessity lurking in its process. 

In the present book, accordingly, we shall see 
the Ego ordered and arranged in its manifold 
distinctions, but this order must be its own, and 
must proceed according to the inherent nature of 
the Ego. Nothing is to be imported into its 
movement from the outside, nothing inside of it 
is to be left out of its movement. 

Accordingly we shall try to avoid two oppo- 
site, yet equally objectionable methods. The 
metaphysical method starts out with some fore- 
gone system of Philosophy which it applies 
more or less externally to the free movement of 
the Ego. The method of Natural Science takes 
the procedure derived from the physical sciences 
and applies the same more or less externally to 



54 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the free movement of the Ego. Each method, 
proceeding from directly opposite standpoints, 
commits the same mistake in regard to Psychol- 
ogy. Yet each method in its proper limits has 
a genuine contribution for Psychology. We 
cannot wholly eliminate metaphysical concepts 
from our science, such as law, science, concept, 
though we banish any pre-ordained metaphysical 
system. Likewise we call to our aid the method 
of physical science in treating of physics and 
physiology as conditions of the psychical pro- 
cess. Still the method of the Ego must be its 
own, self-derived, not taken from Philosophy on 
the one hand, or from Natural Science on the 
other. Method it must have from the start, and 
apply the same strictly, but this method must be 
generated out of itself and imposed upon itself 
by itself. 

The movement, therefore, of the Ego in Intel- 
lect is the overcoming the difference between 
Ego and non-Ego by cognizing the latter as 
itself. The intellectual act is the mind find- 
ing itself in the world, or identifying the 
world with itself. The movement will be 
threefold, bearing the impress of the Ego. 

1. /Sense-perception is the Ego getting pos- 
session of the external object and uniting the 
same with itself — the object being always pres- 
ent to the senses. 

2. Representation is the Ego separating the 



INTELLECT. 55 

image of the external object from itself, elab- 
orating and getting possession of the same in 
all its variations, and then uniting it with it- 
self — the image always being present to the 
Ego. 

3. Thinking is the Ego penetrating the object 
and recognizing the Ego as creating the same. 
Thus the Ego in Thought identifies itself as the 
creative principle in the Universe, as the genus, 
or the generic, that which generates. 

The whole constitutes the Psychosis of the 
Ego as Intellect, as the process of making the 
external object internal, of identifying it with 
the Ego, which latter finally recognizes itself as 
generative energy of the objective world. 



CHAPTER FIRST.— SENSE-PERCEPTION. 

Sense-perception is the process of the Ego in 
knowing the external object through the senses. 
This object is present always in Sense-perception, 
and is seized upon separately by Attention, and 
is incorporated into the Ego with its stores by 
Apperception. The general sweep is from the 
outer sensing to the inner ordering of the object, 
but the knowledge of it remains immediate, or 
the knowledge of the real object. The image of 
the thing is not yet distinguished from the thing, 
both image and thing are in an unconscious unity, 
not to be broken till Representation enters. 

In a general way we shall state beforehand the 
stages through which Sense-perception moves in 
order to know the external object. Three Sec- 
tions: — 

T. Sensation is the act of the Ego uniting the 
(56) 



SENSE-PEBCEPTION. 57 

external world immediately with itself through 
the Senses; 

II. Perception is the act of the Ego seizing 
some particular object given by Sensation, sepa- 
rating the same, and making it a percept ; 

III. Apperception is the act of the Ego order- 
ing the particular percept through and with the 
previous stores of the Ego. 

These three terms have been employed by 
psychologists in a great variety of significations. 
Nearly every original writer has his own usage of 
the terms Sensation, Perception and Appercep- 
tion. Of these, Apperception has hardly yet 
come into universal employment, still it has 
already acquired many different shades of mean- 
ing. The only thing to be done under such cir- 
cumstances is to follow the general trend of 
usage, which we shall try to do. 

There is an advantage in bringing together as 
far as possible the various derivations of the 
verb perceive. The Ego is the percipient in this 
sphere, its content is & percept, the special act is 
a perception, which name is also given to the 
thing perceived. Apperception, the third stage, 
expresses the relation to Perception as the sec- 
ond stage; Bense-perception couples Sensation 
and Perception, and thus overarches the whole 
sphere. 

A word should be said in regard to the defini- 
tions which we have sent on in advance of the 



58 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

special treatment of the provinces defined. They 
are merely provisional, supposed aids for the 
student who wishes to take a brief outlook in 
the direction whither he is going. They are, 
therefore, temporary makeshifts, to be laid 
aside when the real edifice is built. For the true 
definition is not thus picked up from the outside, 
but must generate itself out of what goes before. 
The definition of the Self must be self-defined or 
violate its own inherent nature. The special 
definition of Apperception, for instance, must 
proceed of its own accord out of Perception, its 
antecedent stage, and in like manner that of Per- 
ception out of Sensation. These terms are not 
to be caught up at any point and have a defini- 
tion clapped on them in a merely external 
fashion. Again we affirm that the psychological 
definition must be genetic, self-unfolded, show- 
ing itself as a phase of the process of the Ego. 
In Sense-perception the external object is 
always present to the senses, and is in the pro- 
cess of being taken up and made internal by the 
Ego. Hence this sphere is often called Presen- 
tation, in contrast to Representation. The ex- 
ternal object has extension, has three dimensions 
usually, but when it is sensed, its extension is 
taken away, its geometrical form is canceled by 
passing through the Ego, which, after such 
cancellation, reproduces the extended object. 
Yonder door I perceive ; its exteusion I take up 



SENSE-PEBCEPTIOJST. 59 

into my Ego which has no extension, which is 
just the annulling of extension. Now the 
strange fact occurs that this annulling of the 
object by the Ego is its fresh reproduction. 
Eeally I can only perceive an object by first 
destroying it and then recreating it. Yonder 
door must pass through the zero-point of my 
Ego, and have its three dimensions pressed to 
nothing, before I can see it yonder, the product 
of my own activity. The Ego has to focus all 
externality into itself and then generate it anew 
out of itself. We shall first note this fact in 
Sensation. 



SECTION FIBST.— SENSATION. 

Sensation is the Ego uniting the object with 
itself through the senses. There must be an 
external physical object, there must be the bodily 
organism with its senses, there must be the Ego. 
The act of Sensation requires the presence and 
co-operation of all three elements; the object 
must be presented to the organism, which then 
conveys the presented object to the Ego, which 
last must accept this presentation, reach back 
and take up into itself the object. This is the 
cycle of sensation, starting from the presented 
object and returning to the same, which cycle in 
its totality thus becomes the possession of the 
Ego. 

We can also say, in a general manner, that 
Sensation is the Ego starting to make internal 
the external object by means of the senses. The 
(60) 



SENSATION. 61 

Esro in Sensation annuls the outer into the inner, 
then projects the latter into the world. Sensa- 
tion may also be considered as the first getting a 
knowledge of the material realm, which knowl- 
edge is to be followed up and deepened by later 
processes of mind. 

Sometimes the word Sensation is applied to 
that which is simply an affection of the organism 
without any object, or which is purely imaginary. 
These phases we shall leave out of account at 
present. 

In studying Sensation, accordingly, there are 
three factors which must be carefully held apart 
and examined. 

First, the external factor of Sensation, the 
physical world which is to be taken up and in- 
ternalized by the Ego, the realm of nature 
environing the man, the mundane element. 

Second, the mean factor of Sensation, the 
living body with its nervous system, the middle 
term between mind and matter, the physiological 
or corporeal element, the bridge of life out of 
nature to the soul. 

Third, the internal factor of Sensation, the 
Ego with its self-separating and self-uniting 
process, the psychical or spiritual element of 
Sensation, which is at the same time the total 
cycle of Sensation. 

From the preceding divisions the entire sweep 
of Sensation can be discerned in outline. It is 



62 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the mind's process of transforming the external 
world into the mind, the Ego's movement to 
know externality. The object being at hand, 
that is, being in the horizon of the senses, the 
Ego must present the same to itself, it must 
make such object internal. 

Sensation, however, does not yet distinguish 
the single thing from its continuity in Space or 
its succession in Time; whatever flows in upon 
us through the great stream of objects, has to be 
sensed. 

I. The External Factor of Sensation. 

We consider first that portion of the natural 
world which lies outside of the human organism, 
the extra-organic. This is the primordial mate- 
rial of Sensation, is that which has to be sensed, 
or to be made internal. 

This natural world itself is in a perpetual 
process, which the Ego must finally identify 
with its own. Of the process of nature we dis- 
tinguish three stages : the mechanical, the chem- 
ical, and the physical. The first shows the 
relations of the outward form of matter, the 
second the relations of the inner constitution of 
matter, the third shows matter in a state of 
vibration, which is the process itself in ma- 
terial form. 

The material object has extension, the Ego is 
not extensive, but intensive ; that is, it negates 



SENSATION. 63 

the object as extended, then negates this nega- 
tion, and posits the object anew, as its own. 
Thus it is that the external factor of Sensation 
has to be re-created by the Ego before there can 
be a Sensation. 

We shall now take a few glances at the exter- 
nal factor of Sensation, which has to do with 
nature. It is nature or the physical world which 
is to be taken up by the senses and united with 
the Ego. Now this external nature has a variety 
of phases, or an order within itself; it has also 
its principle or fundamental thought, which may 
be stated to be externality, outsideness, other- 
ness. 

Moreover nature is in a movement, in a pro- 
cess of overcoming its externality ; it longs, so 
to speak, to get inside of itself; hence every 
material body gravitates toward the center of the 
earth, which if it reached, it would no longer be 
outside; it could then be only inside of itself. 
Really it would there attain selfhood. 

The various stages of this movement of nature 
toward internality we have distinguished as the 
mechanical, the chemical, the physical. Each 
of these stages has one or more senses to take it 
up into the Ego, which is seeking to make it 
internal in itself, that is, in the Ego. 

We may now see that Nature and the Ego have 
an intimate correspondence. Nature moves to- 
ward internality or selfhood, even in the act of 



64 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

gravitation ; but the Ego picks up Nature on her 
way to the goal, in one of her stages, and 
internalizes the same, primarily iu an act of 
Sensation. 

I. The mechanical stage shows the purest 
form of externality in the universe. The exter- 
nal body acts upon the external body in an 
external way, whereby the outward force is im- 
parted and continues till overcome. The so-called 
mechanical powers show various ways in which 
external bodies act upon external bodies. Every 
kind of machinery rests essentially upon the 
same principle. 

All space is filled with material bodies standing 
in mechanical relation to one another. From 
the remotest speck of stellar dust to the terres- 
trial objects just around us, we are environed with 
a world of mechanism, which in one way or other 
we have to meet. Our body is simply one of 
these mechanical objects in the first place ; it is 
subject to contact, to motion, to all the incidents 
of this grand environment of mechanism. 

But the human body not only passively re- 
ceives the mechanical impulse and imparts the 
same outwardly, like a piece of lifeless matter; 
it takes up the same inwardly, and imparts it to 
the Ego, through the senses, specially through 
the sense of Touch. Thus, externality in its 
most external manifestation is caught up from 
the outer world and hurried off to the inner 



SENSATION. 65 

world of the Ego where it is incorporated with 
the Self. 

II. The second grand stage in the process of 
Nature is the chemical. The material body is 
now broken into, torn to pieces by its own inner 
agency co-operating with an outside agency; it 
is decomposed into its constituents, which may 
be recomposed into a new and different body. 
Chemism manifests an inner quality of the object ; 
in mechanism the latter is separated or united 
outwardly, in chemism it separates within itself 
according to its own law, and unites in the same 
way. A stone is broken or put together from 
the outside, mechanically, and each part is still 
a stone, and the whole too is a stone ; but when 
it is dissolved, chemically, the separation causes 
it to lose its characteristic, it is no longer a 
stone, it becomes another object or element. 

Chemism, accordingly, changes the form and 
property of the thing, assailing and undoing the 
individuality thereof. Mechanism through its 
forces may break to pieces or mix together 
objects ; they remain the same essentially in 
division or mixture; their individuality is not 
lost. Chemism is the great internally separating 
and transforming principle of external nature. 
Mechanism brings objects outwardly together, 
which chemism then divides and unites inwardly. 

Avast environment of chemism in nature sur- 
rounds us on all sides, which the Ego is to take 

5 



6$ PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

up and appropriate through the senses, which in 
this domain are chiefly Taste and Smell. 

III. Besides the mechanical and chemical 
properties of matter, there are those which are 
distinctively called physical — Sound, Light, 
Heat, Electricity. 

Sound results wheu a body is struck or assailed 
in some way, its individuality is attacked and it 
resists, vibrating between the attack and the 
resistance. A struggle for self is thrown into 

CD 

the air, which is the medium of sound. A sound- 
world thus arises and environs the man, reaching 
him through the ear. 

Light is caused mainly by consumption of 
matter, the chemical change of form. The 
grand source of Light is the sun, the center of 
the solar system, which is burning up, and thus 
reveals nature or externality. The result is, 
Light is thrown out from the center in opposition 
to gravity, or the principle of mechanism. Such 
is the destiny of the external world: as it ap- 
proaches the center or internality, it is consumed, 
it vanishes, and yet produces the light, in which 
the inherent character of externality is revealed. 
Vision is the sense by which all this is brought 
to the Ego. 

Heat also is the result of combustion, primarily 
of the sun, so that we have a heat-ray as well as 
a light-ray. It is propagated through a medium 
in undulations and is taken up by the entire 



SENSATION. 67 

periphery of the body, requiring no special 
sense. 

Electricity is the result of mechanical friction 
or chemical dissolution, and moves in a circuit. 
There is first the separation of this force into 
opposites, called positive and negative poles, and 
then their unity in the current. A cyclical move- 
ment manifests itself in electricity and begins 
to suggest the circuits of organic life, especially 
of the nervous system. 

The complete mechanical cycle takes up the 
earth into its movement — the earth whose revo- 
lution around the sun is the outermost form of 
the cycle in nature, namely the cycle of gravita- 
tion. Electricity shows the innermost cycle of 
nature, in which the force divides itself within 
itself in order to manifest itself. The chemical 
cycle is intermediate : the two bodies disintegrate 
into their constituents in order to integrate anew; 
thus there is a circuit from unity to separation 
and back to unity. 

Sound, Light, Heat, Electricity can be pro- 
duced by both mechanical and chemical means. 
All are the result of an assault on or a dissolu- 
tion of material bodies, that is, of the negation 
of matter in some form. Such a negation in 
the first place negates gravity, goes in opposition 
to it; hence it propagates itself through the sur- 
rounding medium in all directions, or along a 
wire or confined medium. 



68 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The fact then appears that the special senses 
take up matter in some negated phase; it has 
to be in the process of becoming non-material 
in order to be received by the senses and the 
mind. What we may call the immateriality of 
matter is the form of it to which the Ego re - 
sponds, being itself supremely the immaterial 
principle. 

One may see in the form of vibration the 
oscillatory trembling between the non-material 
and the material, the opposite of the steady 
force of gravity, an image or outer semblance 
of the struggle between the two sides. The 
air, invisible matter, has this billowy character in 
its perpetual recoil against the earth and its 
movement. The air is a vast sea of rolling 
waves, in which man lives; he takes up an 
unseen principle in his breath. 

The process of negating matter is what the 
senses receive from these physical agents. (1) 
The most external is the mechanical assault 
upon the object which, however, reacts and 
preserves itself, producing sound or vibration of 
the air. (2) Heat is also produced by mechan- 
ical assault upon the object as well as by chem- 
ical dissolution and combustion. (3) Light is 
the product of negation, being the result of the 
combustion or destruction of form in all cases 
doubtless. The peculiar point in the case of 
Light is that while its cause is form-destroying 



SENSATION. 69 

it is for the environment form-revealing; the 
consuming matter shows the limits, the finitude 
of matter. Such is the dualism which is brought 
to the Ego by vision — in the negation of matter 
we behold its limitation. (4) Electricity is set 
in motion by the destruction of material in 
a certain relation, by mechanical or chemical 
means. But this power is not now radiated 
from a center but takes the circular form more 
or less confined. The breaking of the circuit 
causes it to manifest its force to overcome the 
separation. The transmission of this negative 
power as electrical is very destructive to all 
material forms, if they stand in the way of the 
return, in the breach of the circuit. 

Looking back at the natural object in the 
present connection, we observe that its move- 
ment is more and more from the external and 
extensive, toward the internal and intensive, 
then back again to a new form of the external 
and extensive, namely the vibration. This piece 
of wood as extended is assailed or destroyed, the 
result is sound or light which is a new projection 
of the body assailed or destroyed, in the form of 
the vibration. Its extension is transformed and 
becomes an intensive (or internal) principle 
which transforms itself back into extension, 
which now has motion. 

In this external process of nature we note the 
correspondence with the internal process of the 



70 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego, which in Sensation takes it up and assimi- 
lates it with itself. The mediating element be- 
tween these two extreme processes (the external 
and the internal) is the human body whose func- 
tion in the present sphere we are next to con- 
sider. 

II. The Mean Factor of Sensation. 

We have now reached the corporeal organism, 
which with its nervous system is the mean factor 
of Sensation, intermediate between the world 
and the Ego. Nature in some form comes in 
contact with and stimulates the nerve-ends, and 
this stimulation will be found to involve the 
entire animate body, which is the gate as well 
as the track from the outer to the inner, and 
back again to the stimulated part. Thus the 
movement in the organism and also its structure, 
especially its neural structure, is cyclical. Al- 
ready we observed the same fact as the chief 
phenomenon of electricity in external nature, 
and electrical action we shall find transmuting 
itself into nervous energy. 

The neural structure of the human body we 
shall now study a little as the organic basis of 
Sensation, omitting as far as possible anatomical 
details, and trying to see the main thing, namely, 
its correlation with the Ego. Three divisions of 
structure we shall briefly designate. 

I. The corporeal periphery, with its system of 



SENSATION. 71 

nerve-endings which receive the external stimu- 
lus and start the neural molecular movement — 
The Senses. 

II. The separative principle of the nervous 
system, manifesting itself primarily in the dual 
division of the nerves into afferent and efferent, 
which come together in a central organ, also 
distinct, namely, the brain and its adjuncts. 

III. The unity of the system made active and 
real in the neural molecular movement, which, 
still material, is the final stimulus of the Ego to 
Sensation. This molecular movement tends to 
be cyclical, but its circuit is broken, like the two 
poles of the electrical circuit, till the psychical 
factor is introduced and unites the current, 
which is the completed means of communication 
between the outer world and the Ego. 

We have used the term corporeal periphery, 
which has become quite common in the Psychol- 
ogy of to-day. Conceive your body as a sphere ; 
each point on its surface is connected with a 
plexus of nerves which sends off a radius to the 
middle of the sphere, where is the central organ 
which bears the stimulus of the Ego. The sur- 
face of the sphere is everywhere brought into 
some form of contact with the outer world, which 
the Ego must receive, internalize, and recreate for 
itself. There is to be not simply a reflection of 
the external object as from a mirror, but a re- 
production of it, a kind of re-enactment of its 



72 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

creation. Thus each Ego with its sphere is a 
microcosm, has to make itself a center of the 
universe, generating the latter over again for 
itself. Only in this way can it ever get a sen- 
sation of externality. 

I. The corporeal periphery is organized into 
the so-called Senses, which are usually consid- 
ered to be five in number. The outer surface 
of the animate body is specialized into separate 
forms and aptitudes for receiving impressions 
from the external world. There is an outer 
bodily organ and a capacity in the same for 
taking up and transmitting these impressions to 
the central organ. We may note a gradation in 
the Senses, as they move more and more toward 
a complete possession of the environment: first, 
the general Sense of contact — Touch; second, 
the specialized Senses of contact — Taste and 
Smell ; third, the Senses which reach out beyond 
contact, and which are stimulated through the 
vibrations of a medium — Hearing and Sight. 
Designating them by their objective character 
rather than by their subjective, we may call 
them in a general way the mechanical, the chem- 
ical, and the physical Senses, in accord with the 
divisions of the material world already given. 
Doubtless these distinctions in certain cases 
overlap, still in the main they hold good. 

We shall briefly outline the general character 
of the five Senses, which have in recent times 



SENSATION. 73 

been specially investigated by the physiological 
psychologists. These investigations start from 
physiology and seek to find therein some traces 
or intimations of the psychical principle through 
experiment, measurement, and external obser- 
vation. All this is certainly not to be neglected. 
Our attempt, however, moves in the opposite 
direction ; we have sought here to give a meager 
outline, not of physiological psychology, but 
rather of psychological physiology ; the mental 
process determines the physical and not the 
physical the mental ; the purpose is not to indi- 
cate natural law in the spiritual world, but 
spiritual law in the natural world. 

1. Touch. This may be considered the most 
general of the Senses, since it belongs to every 
part of the corporeal periphery in a greater or 
less degree; yet on the other hand it is the most 
narrow and particular of all the Senses, since it 
is limited to the area of contact, and this con- 
tact is simply mechanical. It is indeed essen- 
tially the mechanical sense, transferring the 
immediate mechanical element of nature into 
sensation. Through it we get the notion of 
weight, of pressure, of the primal relation of 
body to body, and possibly of temperature. 
Moreover this Sense is the substrate of all the 
other Senses, for even the distant object of 
Sight has to be brought into the field of Touch 
ere it can be sensed. 



74 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The entire periphery, as already stated, is 
covered with the nerve ends of Touch, so that 
the body may be regarded as one vast organ of 
this Sense. Still it is differentiated ; every part 
of the body has its own degree of excitability 
through the stimulus; the tips of the fingers 
have the greatest delicacy, the middle of the 
back the least. The whole corporeal area has 
been mapped out into regions according to their 
degree of sensitivity through contact — a signifi- 
cant fact showing the external division of the 
periphery in its oneness. 

Passing to the side of the element of stimu- 
lation, which comes through object, we find that 
it too has various degrees, or stages which can be 
laid off and measured. 'The stimulus has to rise 
to a certain point of intensity before any sensation 
can be felt ; this point is called by psychologists 
the threshold, a metaphorical term which sug- 
gests that the stimulus has to pass up a certain 
number of steps (degrees) ere it can enter the 
door of Touch. But when the door has been 
entered, there are still steps or degrees if we 
wish to go through the house. Suppose we feel 
the pressure of an object to have a certain de- 
gree of intensity; in order to have a sensation 
of an increased pressure, the stimulus must be 
increased in a fixed ratio. If the increase be 
too small, the difference is not felt. The total 
step must be made in order to have the response 



SENSATION. 75 

of sensation. The following is Weber's famous 
law upon this subject: To increase the sensation, 
the stimulus must be increased in a constant ratio. 
The pressure sensations are said by Wundt to 
require an addition of one-third to the stimulus, 
otherwise the change will not be felt. For 
example, there is a pressure of three pounds 
on the back of the hand; it will require 
four pounds to produce any sensation of 
increased weight; then to these four pounds 
one-third must be added to make the new pressure 
felt. This accords with a common experience: 
if we add one pound to a pound of pressure, we 
feel the difference ; but if we add one pound to 
one hundred pounds of pressure, the difference 
is not perceptible, even if it be the last straw 
which breaks the camel's back. First, then, the 
stimulus has to reach a certain degree in order 
to attain the minimum sensibile or to cross the 
threshold of sensation ; secondly, the stimulus 
has to increase in a constant ratio in order to 
increase the sensation; thirdly, we may add, the 
sensation in its various aspects is localized, that 
is, assigned to its locality in the organism by the 
immediate act of the Ego, and not by any system 
of local signs which are a fiction introduced into 
recent Psychology by Lotze, and quite unneces- 
sary when the psychical factor of sensation is 
rightly understood. At least, these local signs 
loudly call for a physiological basis in the 



76 PSYCHOLOGY AND TUB PSYCHOSIS. 

organism, which basis up to the present time has 
never been pointed out, though often conjectured. 

In reference to getting a knowledge of the 
external world, Touch may be deemed the first 
stage of the mental awakening. It has already 
been stated that this Sense acts on a limited area, 
and that area external ; it, the most general sense 
of the body, is the most particular and confined 
in its scope of activity. The other Senses, as 
they become specialized, will be intenser and 
more internal, always approaching nearer and 
nearer the internality of the Ego. Very early, 
however, the mind begins to synthesize through 
Touch, and bring together different tactile points, 
and so get a knowledge of surface and its quali- 
ties — hardness and softness, smoothness and 
roughness, movability, distance within certain 
bounds. Judgment is, of course, involved in 
such a synthesis, though it is mostly unconscious 
and gets to be very rapid. Judgment, however, 
becomes far more explicit in Touch when the 
latter undertakes to give some knowledge of the 
external figure of bodies. Still this Sense can 
but very dimly attain, even with the aid of Judg- 
ment, the point of getting possession of total 
forms, and thus become an art-sense, though 
some writers have so maintained. We can hardly 
reach the Beautiful through palpation. 

2. Taste and /Smell, These are specialized 
senses, each having its particular organ in the per- 



SENSATION. 77 

iphery, yet requiring immediate contact of the 
object or of its volatilized particles. Both are es- 
sentially chemical senses, bringing to the mind the 
disintegration of bodies within, and thus they 
reach a more internal principle of the material 
world than Touch. The properties of things now 
go beyond mere external mechanical relations. It 
is said that electricity can excite both these 
senses to activity. Both are guardians of inter- 
nal organs of the body, Taste of the digestive, 
Smell of the respiratory apparatus, watching lest 
some injurious substance may enter lungs or 
stomach. Still not everything harmful to the 
organism rouses the protest of Taste and Smell ; 
nor is everything disagreeable to them harmful. 
These two watch-dogs of the inner regions, like 
Cerberus of Hades, can also be quieted by a 
soporific cake, and can by over-indulgence in 
their own special delights, become destroyers of 
their charge. 

It is to be noted that these two senses, though 
specialized in organs, manifest different forms 
of specialization. The tongue which is the spe- 
cial organ of Taste is twofold but not yet fully 
dualized, which last fact we observe in the two 
nostrils, which still, however, make one nose. 
This movement of the organs of sensation toward 
a completer dualization will be more fully char- 
acterized later on. 

Taste requires immediate contact of the object 



78 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

with its organ, the tongue, as well as the appli- 
cation of an acidulous solvent to the substance 
which is to be tasted. Thus we see the main 
elements of a small chemical laboratory at work 
dissolving the object and taking the fact up into 
sensation. Still it must be confessed that taste 
gives but a very small fragment, of the total 
chemism of nature, apparently only that needful 
for the protection and preservation of the bodily 
organism. Taste, we may add, is capable of 
great cultivation, and rises through all stages, 
from the earth-eating Indian to the refined 
Roman epicure who claimed he could tell simply 
by means of gustation the locality where his 
mullets were caught. Hence Good Taste has 
been applied metaphorically to spiritual discern- 
ment, especially in artistic matters. 

This Sense is very closely connected with Smell 
both in the locality of the respective organs and 
in their action; often an object, an onion for 
instance, seems to be smelt through the Taste 
and to be tasted through the Smell. The odor 
of cooked cabbage is distinctly tastable, and the 
aroma of the oyster stew stimulates the gustatory 
faculty. Wherewith we pass by an easy transi- 
tion into the next Sense. 

Smell discerns by means of its organ the de- 
composing body; it recognizes the decay of 
nature, the dissolution of the object, but it does 
not bring about this dissolution for its own 



SENSATION. 79 

behoof, as is the case with Taste. Smell does 
not require direct contact of the object, though 
the particles of the latter must reach the organ 
and stimulate the same. This sense begins to 
get at things in the distance, and thus leads over 
to the following Senses (Hearing and Sight). 
It requires volatilization of the object, which 
charges the air as its medium, and therein con- 
nects with Hearing, which takes up, not the 
floating material particles, but the pure undula- 
tions of the air. Smell, while it does not of 
itself negate nature, like Taste, nevertheless 
senses the inner negation of nature through 
herself, and gives a note of warning it may be, 
or a response of delight. This sense has also 
its spiritual suggestion in life and literature, in 
which the fragrance of the flower has played its 
part. Smell discriminates races of men to a 
certain extent. A German has elaborated a 
system of smelling by which he declares that 
individual character can be smelt, and that 
the science can be taught. It is well known that 
many of the lower animals have this sense far 
more highly developed than man, and can scent 
their unseen and unheard foe at a distance through 
the medium of the air. Smell thus in a lower 
degree takes the place of Hearing and Sight, to 
which we next pass. 

3. Hearing and Sight. Both these Senses 
take up the external object at a distance from 



80 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the periphery, and thus the outer world reaches 
them through the vibration of a medium — air 
and light. The object heard or seen is not neces- 
sarily in the process of destruction, but is pre- 
served for the most part in its integrity ; these are 
not chemical Senses, though of course one can see 
and hear bodies in a state of dissolution. The main 
point is that in Hearing and Sight a medium inter- 
venes, a mediatorial element enters the process of 
the Senses, mediation begins between the material 
thing and the special organ. The medium is in- 
deed physical, but much refined, etherealized, we 
might say spiritualized, so that it takes the im- 
pression of the object and vibrates the same to 
the special Sense, from which it is borne to the 
central organ. The previous Senses received the 
object immediately; Hearing and Sight require 
the object to be mediated for them, that is, taken 
up and transformed into a medium lying some- 
where about midwa3 r between the material world 
and mind. Light has been called an ideal matter, 
quite contradicting gravity, yet still belonging to 
nature. For the same cause light has always been 
deemed the best physical analogon of intelligence. 
In this lies the reason why Hearing and Sight 
are the art-senses. In art the material form is 
filled with the spirit; both sides, the ideal and 
the real, must be transmitted through a medium 
which can take up both, and which is both to a 
degree. Hearing and Sight through their media 

o ait) o 



SENSATION. 81 

receive totalities of sound and shape, each of 
which in art express an idea. Touch, for 
instance, cannot get the notion of a statue, 
because the whole is not mediated for it, and as 
an immediate Sense it comes in contact with 
merely a small part of the surface. Only the 
total form with its outlines and limits reveals 
truly the inner or spiritual element of art. 
Music is a totality of sound ordered in harmony 
and in succession, which totality must be re- 
ceived and transmitted by the aerial medium to 
the ear, which in this new shape takes it up and 
transmits it to the central organ. 

Hearing is that sense which receives the sound 
of bodies. What is the nature of sound? A 
material object is struck, its individuality is 
assailed, which, however, it recovers. 

The process of this recovery is an oscillatory 
movement, a kind of trembling, thrilling, vibrat- 
ing of the object assailed, which the surrounding 
medium, the air, responds to with its vibrations. 
A string struck when in tension vibrates from 
side to side, and recovers its equipoise, thus 
asserting itself against the assault from without. 
The roused object thrills itself to rest, but on its 
way thereto it makes its music, which stirs my 
Ego to similar vibrations in response. There is 
a vast sound-world about us which, when duly 
ordered, becomes an echo of the inner movement 
of the Ego, and therein is musical. 



82 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The sound of the voice prints upon the aerial 
medium its articulations, and sends them to the 
ear through a real pneumatic tube made of air 
and breath, and easily shifted about according to 
will. This sound strikes my ear-drum, beats it 
with recurrent waves, which are propagated to 
my brain, where I get the message atmospheric. 
The Ego is the recipient; every air-wave has 
a meaning which I read like a telegraphic 
message, as it were from point to point, or 
from sound to sound. You and I — two Egos 
at the two ends of the line — are the two offices, 
or the two final readers of the message; that is 
the important fact in the whole affair. There 
could be no sensation without this reading Ego, 
which has the power of going back to the begin- 
ing of the line, and completing the cycle from 
object to Ego and from Ego to object ; this total 
cyclical movement in a single act is what is known 
as a sensation. 

Moreover Hearing is in Time directly, it re- 
ceives the vibrations in succession, and is a 
temporal Sense, catching up and reporting the 
never-ceasing play between the Appearing and 
the Vanishing. But the Ego by its very nature 
cannot endure such a condition, cannot rest in un- 
rest; the forms of Hearing have the tendency to 
move out of their fluid state and to become fixed 
in spatial shapes which are visible. Thus the 
spoken word has to crystallize itself into the 



SENSATION. 83 

pictured, written, and printed word, in which 
sound can be seen, and speech can be repro- 
duced. For such a purpose a new Sense is called 
for, to which we now pass. 

Sight receives the form of the object through 
the medium of light (or through the vibration 
of a luminiferous ether), which does not assail 
the external body, yet reveals all its bounds and 
limits, manifests spatial figure. Light itself, 
however, springs from the destruction of matter, 
and therein becomes the medium for showing the 
finitude and limitation of the material of objects. 
Light rays itself out in opposition to gravity, 
and yet is itself material; light is matter mani- 
festing in itself its own negation; we might call 
it spiritual matter or material spirit. Hence it is 
the most suggestive symbol of spirit to be found 
in nature, and is so employed by all tongues. It 
is the medium for the most spiritual of the 
senses, which is Vision ; it mediates the 
material world with the Ego, which is the 
immaterial. 

Sight is, accordingly, the culmination of the 
senses, and their conclusion. It has revealed to 
the Ego the finite, limited character of the 
external world, bringing the same to its end, so 
to speak, and showing its final outcome. Vision 
sees primarily by the self-destroying activity 
of the central body of our material system. 
Through this colossal negativity the medium is 



84 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

begotten in whose undulations is witnessed the 
boundary of all matter, up to which the previous 
Senses have led, and of which each has given 
prophetic indications. 

The five Senses have thus an inner movement 
from the lowest to the highest, from Touch 
giving only a few separate particulars, to Sight 
giving a totality of outward form. The driving 
principle of this inner movement is the secret 
force or aspiration in all nature to assimilate 
itself to the Ego, to unify the dualism between 
subject and object, to become self-knowing, 
a Person, which is truly the ideal center of the 
Universe. 

At the same time it will be important to trace 
the outer movement to the same end in the 
physical structure of the five Senses. It may 
be said that the sense-organs show an external 
visible gradation toward the Ego, which is the 
process through complete dualism into complete 
unity as observed in self-consciousness. Touch, 
being the general sense, is twofold only as the 
whole body is twofold in its bi-lateral symmetry. 
The tongue, the organ of Taste, is a special 
organ, yet has its two sides in undivided unity, 
and is quite as bi-lateral as the total body. The 
nose, the seat of smell, is a special organ, but is 
separated in itself by a partition; still the two 
sides are united into one member. The two 
ears are completely separated, being not only 



SENSATION. 85 

apart but opposite in locality ; yet they, like the 
previous organs of Sense, are immediately con- 
nected with the organism. The two eyes are 
also wholly separated from, though not opposite 
to, each other; still the separation goes deeper, 
since they are distinct organs, inserted into the 
periphery of the body, structurally quite inde- 
pendent, spherical and movable. Thus they 
show two kinds of separation, from one another 
and from the total organism, to which, however, 
they are joined by a number of muscular and 
neural lines. 

In such manner the sense organs are seen to 
move more and more into dualism, till in the two 
eyes each has the outer form of a distinct indi- 
vidual. Now this separative character unites 
them with Nature on the one hand, and with the 
Ego on the other, which latter has also its side 
of separation. All this external dualism will 
become ideally one through the Ego, as we shall 
hereafter see. 

Thus there is a structural ordering of the 
Senses, manifested in the outward form of their 
respective organs as well in their functions. The 
principle of this ordering, outer and inner, is 
the Ego, or the consciousness of Self, of which 
the Senses are a projection into externality, and 
toward which they move in a line of gradation. 
As we have noticed, the movement is from Touch, 
the most immediate and least differentiated of 



86 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Senses, into a more complete dualism and 
separation till the eye is reached. Yet all along 
this line of dualism and separation, the psychical 
unity is correspondingly getting to be more com- 
plete, and the Sense more perfect, that is, more 
nearly the image and expression of the Ego, 
which is its "ideal prototype as well as end. 
Along the same organic line the child moves into 
the consciousness of Self; out of the self-move- 
ment of the body he unfolds into the self-con- 
sciousness of the Ego, which, implicit at first, 
becomes explicit through the separation of the 
Self from the organism. 

II. We now pass from the first to the second 
portion of the nervous organism considered as 
the mean or intermediate factor of Sensation. 
In connection with the outer periphery of the 
body and its special Senses are the two sets of 
nerves running to and from the central organ, 
which is the brain and spinal cord. These two 
sets of nerves, the afferent and the efferent, hint 
the dual principle of the organic frame work, 
while the central organ in which they are joined 
suggests their unity, though it too is subdivided. 

1. When we look at the outer shape of the 
living organism, we are struck by its double- 
ness, or two-sidedness, often called bi-lateral 
symmetry. Draw the median line through your 
body, and you will see that the latter is two in 
order to be one. Each side is a symmetrical 



SENSATION. 87 

repetition of the other, yet both are united in 
a single organism. Such is the outer visible 
appearance of yourself; it is the picture of 
your Ego made external, outered, transformed 
into body. Note the twofoldness, the separa- 
tion ; yet also note the unity. The most direct 
material manifestation of you is your body; 
it is your other, not that of anybody else, 
or of anything else; it is the exact outward 
counterpart of your inward Self — truly the 
body of your Ego. Altogether the best likeness 
or image of the Ego in material form is the body, 
indeed, the best of all possible pictures it must be 
in the nature of the case. Hence in art it and 
nothing else can be employed for the adequate 
expression of the spirit. 

Bi-lateral symmetry is the incarnation of sub- 
ject-object, including the hyphen, being the visible 
twofoldness which is one. This twofoldness 
or duplicity is, accordingly, immediate, not yet 
made explicit. 

2. In the next stage of the organism we see 
this immediate duplicity unfolded in the afferent 
and efferent nerves, which are distinct from each 
other and form a principle and indeed a system. 
The external organs of the body, the muscular, 
representing more the mechanical element in the 
human frame, are controlled by these two sets of 
nerves. In like manner, the internal organs, 
those of digestion and respiration, for instance, 



88 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

representing more the chemical principle in the 
body, are connected by nerve lines with the cen- 
tral organ. The total organism, inner and outer, 
has this double set of lines, often compared to 
telegraph wires; we may liken them to a stream 
of couriers moving to and coming from head- 
quarters. 

In bi-lateral symmetry we see the duplicity of 
the body manifested in its outer shape. But we 
have to enter inside the organism and take it to 
pieces in order to observe the duplicity of the 
nervous principle. Next the separation is car- 
ried a step further, and the third organ comes 
to light in its own distinct shape. 

3. This is the central system composed of the 
brain and spinal cord. Now the mediating organ 
has appeared, the twofold has become threefold, 
the duplicity is united in a third, which makes 
the whole an organic triplicity. It is well to 
note the movement of structure from below up- 
ward, culminating in this central system. There 
is an unfolding from the immediate outer shape 
of the body in bi-lateral symmetry, to the com- 
plete inner separation in the twofold afferent and 
efferent nerve-lines, which separation finds its 
uniting element in the third organ just mentioned. 
The structural circuit is thus made entire. 

The above exposition is intended especially to 
suggest the similitude between the human organ- 
ism and the Ego. Thus we may the better see 



SENSATION. 89 

reasons why this body of ours is the mean, that 
is, the mediatorial factor between the Ego and 
the external world. 

Such is, in general, the threefold structure, 
visible, separate, material, of the nervous system. 
It lies before us in external division, but it has a 
principle of inner movement which we may now 
look at — the principle of unification. 

III. The active unifying principle of the 
nervous system as such is the following move- 
ment. The external object stimulates the end- 
nerve, this stimulus is transformed into a nervous 
energy, which is propagated to the central organ, 
whence there is a return to the starting-point. 
Such is what is called often the neural molecular 
movement, which is unquestionably a form of 
successive undulation, be it caused by mechani- 
cal, chemical, or electrical action. In Sight and 
Hearing the outer undulation from the object is 
transmuted into this inner molecular undulation 
which has access to the brain. But it is clear 
that this inner molecular undulation in the affer- 
ent nerve must again be changed, nay totally 
reversed, else there could be no Sensation. The 
undulatory movement would simply continue 
forever, or perchance be stopped without the 
return. So, after all, the molecular energy can- 
not of itself complete the circuit, but calls for 
another principle. 

But at this point comes to an end the mean 



90 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

factor of Sensation, without having been able to 
make complete the bond of connection between 
the afferent and the efferent nervous energies. 
The total Sensation has to separate from and 
return to the stimulated part of the bodily peri- 
phery. Thus the complete movement is in the 
form of a cycle, while the afferent energy works 
in a straight line. What causes the revolution? 
We have to answer, the Ego ; but with such 
an answer we have transcended our present 
sphere. 

The corporeal organism has shown itself not 
only the intermediate, but also the mediating 
factor of Sensation, since it mediates the exter- 
nal world with the Ego. Compared to this 
external world it is inner ; compared to the Ego, 
it is outer. Its structural suggestion is cyclical, 
though the Ego has to complete the cycle and 
make the organism sensitive. Moreover the 
outer corporeal structure is the image of Ego in 
Space and Time, manifesting itself visibly, 
materializing itself in external shape. Now we 
shall turn to the Ego, who has been all along the 
hidden demiurge in these marvelous manifesta- 
tions. 

III. The Psychical Factor of Sensation. 

We now begin to enter Psychology, hitherto 
we have dealt only with preliminaries. The 
activity of the Ego is the internal or psychical 



SENSATION. 91 

factor of Sensation, the essential principle of it. 
What is the nature of this activity ? 

The ball which I see before me cannot enter 
my brain with its material extension ; if it once 
did, that would be the end of my seeing. I must 
annul its material extension, thus only can I 
receive it; yet 1 must annul this annulment, and 
posit it anew as object. I see the ball; what is 
involved in that? I have to wipe it out of exist- 
ence, as far as I am concerned, and make it over 
again. As immediately extended, I cannot pos- 
sibly receive it ; but I can reproduce it as 
extended, after I have negated its extension. 
Such the Ego must do in order to have a 
Sensation. 

The Ego in Sensation, therefore, first negates 
the object as extended ; but this negative act is 
really preservative, annulling the externality of 
the object and preserving it as internal; finally 
the Ego projects the object as extended, re- 
creates the same as its own. Thus the Ego 
makes complete the circuit of Sensation, and 
unites the external thing with itself. The outer 
stimulus rouses the Ego to reproduction, that 
is, to the reproduction of the stimulus as 
extended, or, in general, of the environment of 
nature. 

We have called the psychical factor internal ; it 
is doubly so, both in regard to external nature and 
in regard to the human body. The Ego not only 



92 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS 

internalizes the vibratory movement of the former, 
but also the neural molecular movement of the lat- 
ter. The nervous system showed an outer return 
of its energy, in some form of succession ; the 
Ego is an inner return which cancels succession, 
and which is the Psychosis. I can only feel in so 
far as the Ego reverses the incoming molecular 
succession, which began with stimulating the 
end-nerve. 

If I touch this table with my finger-tips, I 
get a Sensation of the object. The end-nerve 
is stimulated and there is a molecular movement 
in the nerve to the central organ, where I feel 
the stimulus. That is, there is an ideal return to 
the peripheral contact; I go back to it mentally, 
the Ego returns to the starting-point of the stim- 
ulus, it reverses the molecular succession, which, 
if continued, would simply render Sensation 
impossible. I, the Ego, negate the successive 
movement along its whole line, and convert the 
stimulus into a Sensation by making it return 
into itself, and thus reproduce the object, which 
is the original stimulus. 

This transmuting or redirecting power has 
been more or less distinctly acknowledged by 
psychologists, and has been given various names, 
such as sensorium or sensation continuum. In a 
general way both these terms mean that the par- 
ticular stimulus has to be transmitted to and trans- 
formed by some universal agent of Sensation, 



SENSATION. 93 

and then it can be retransmitted to its particular 
locality on the bodily periphery. Thus, how- 
ever, in order to explain an activity, a new and 
unnecessary faculty or activity is introduced, 
which itself needs explanation and co-ordination. 
But in fact it is simply the Ego going through 
its process, having the stimulus of the object and 
the resulting molecular movement of the nerves 
as its content. This Ego, which in its own nature 
is the return to unity with itself out of difference, 
cancels the successive difference of the molecular 
movement of the nerves and produces the return 
which is the essential fact of Sensation, this 
return involving the ideal reproduction of the 
object. 

In the present sphere there will be manifested 
three stages, in which we shall see the Ego trans- 
muting more and more completely the outer into 
the inner, canceling the vibratory movement of 
both the nerves and the external world into a 
deeper and deeper return, and thus making three 
different cycles of Sensation. The first is con- 
fined to the corporeal organism, the second em- 
braces the material body in contact with the 
organism, the third reaches out to the material 
body at a distance from the organism and includes 
that. Three different cycles starting from three 
different peripheries — the organic, the contigu- 
ous, and the separated, or the inner, middle and 
outer cycles — show the Ego taking up into Sen- 



94 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

sation its immediate organism and the external 
world. 

I. There is first the cycle of the corporeal 
organism, being inside the human body. The 
molecular movement, whatever be the cause of 
its excitation, is carried to the central organ, 
where the succession is canceled, and we have 
what is called feeling, the most immediate form 
of Sensation. With the return to the starting- 
point of the excitation, the cycle is complete, and, 
having both center and circumference, possesses 
self-movement. That is, the neural movement, 
being turned back upon itself, becomes self-mov- 
ing. That which transforms the molecular move- 
ment into the cycle of self-movement is the Ego, 
since the latter is by its own nature the self-return. 

In such a cycle each portion of the nerve has 
an automatic power ; it must be able to receive a 
stimulus, to react against it, to separate from it, 
sending it forward. Thus each nerve-cell in 
itself is a small cycle, else it could not take up 
and transmit any inner or outer stimulus. Then 
there is the single line or neural circuit, finally 
the entire system of circuits reaching to every 
part of the body. 

In the present case there is no direct external 
stimulus, no contact with any outer object; the 
organism has its own inner stimulus. This is 
often unknown, and brings about nervous action 
in disease. A sudden tic or stitch is an excita- 



SENSATION. 95 

tion within the organism itself; there is also an 
inner locomotion often, without any outer cause. 
Imagination can bring about intense neural 
movements with corresponding sensations. 

II. When an external object is brought into 
contact with the corporeal organism, a new 
environment is drawn into the cycle of Sensation ; 
we begin to feel or to sense the outer world, that 
is, we start to making the external object inter- 
nal and to reproducing the same. A periphery 
of contiguity surrounds our organism, which has 
to take it up and to transform it into an inner 
realm of sensation, this being the first stage of 
all knowledge. Our bodies on every side touch 
things, which stimulate the end nerves to a 
cyclical activity of various stages. 

In the first place, the stimulus of contact is 
located on the surface of the total organism, 
wherever this stimulus may be applied. It is a 
curious fact that each point on the human body 
is designated specially and known, if it be stimu- 
lated. How can that be? The stimulus on the 
thumb differs from that on the forefinger, the 
Ego discriminates them, each is supposed to 
have what psychologists call a local sign, of 
which local signs there must be many thousands 
if not millions on the area of one human body. 
Really, however, there is here a special cycle of 
Sensation passing from the part stimulated to the 
center and back again through the act of the 



96 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego, which cancels the incoming molecular suc- 
cession to its starting-point at the stimulus. 
Localization is very significant as showing the 
ideal counterpart of the Ego to the molecular 
movement; thus the Ego feels the stimulus at 
its beginning. 

In the second place, not only the locality on 
the surface of the organism is designated, but 
the total organism moves itself, changes its 
place. The external object in contact produces 
the stimulus, which is localized; but now the 
organism breaks the contact, separates itself 
from the contiguous object and thus gets rid of 
the stimulus. This demands another cycle in 
which there is an outward activity from the center 
which moves the whole body and makes it tran- 
scend its limits in space. Or the central power, 
having localized the stimulus of contact at a cer- 
tain point, moves that point away from the con- 
tiguous object. 

In the third place, the total organism locates 
itself afresh, takes another position, comes into 
a new contact. Thus it has begun to show its 
mastery over space, it transcends and posits its 
own spatial limits. We saw that the Ego ob- 
tained an inner or immediate control of the 
organism in feeling first, but now it shows an 
outer or mediate control of the organism in loco- 
motion. The Ego at first located the stimulus of 
the body, now it locates the whole body. The 



SENSATION. 97 

Ego is adjusting the body to an external world 
of contact, with which the latter unites and 
separates according to the process of the Ego. 

III. The cycle of Sensation reaches out and 
takes up an external object not in immediate 
contact with the organism. The stimulus now 
passes through a vibratory medium which im- 
pinges on a nerve-end and this connects with the 
central organ. Thus the environment is still 
further extended and embraces objects at a dis- 
tance. The ear and the eye are the end organs 
which receive their stimulus from the vibrations 
or undulations of a medium. This stage has the 
two preceding stages as its conditions, which it 
resumes into itself. 

The vibrating medium is the stimulus which 
touches the peripheral nerve-ends first ; this is 
the stage of immediate contact. But the Ego 
distinguishes this vibrating medium from the ex- 
ternal object of contact; one is an undulatory 
succession, the other is not, but is fixed and 
cohesive. Now the Ego cancels this undulatory 
succession of the external medium, as it canceled 
the molecular succession of the nerves. The 
result is the new cycle of Sensation, which extends 
along the entire undulatory line to the object as 
its source. The Ego now senses the external 
object at a distance. The two kinds of vibra- 
tions, organic and extra-organic, the Ego takes up, 
cancels and preserves as ideal ; this makes the 

7 



98 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Sensation. The vibration is the element of dif- 
ference, while the Ego is the return out of 
difference. 

In this way the world of Sensation, of which 
the Ego with its corporeal organism is the center, 
has been enormously extended . In fact there is 
hardly any limit to it; by those new eyes, the 
telescope and the miscroscope, the invisible is 
made visible in the infinitely distant and in the 
infinitely small; by those new ears, the telephone 
and the microphone, the far-off voice and the 
still small voice are literally heard. The horizon 
of Sensation keeps widening with the years ; an 
instrument picks up the hitherto unseen and 
unheard, and carries them into the field of vision 
and hearing. 

What constitutes a stimulus? It too is often 
a process which reflects the Ego. The end-organ 
first must accept the outer contact or vibration, 
and be one with the same and be controlled; 
then it must react, separate and be itself; then 
it must take up the stimulus within itself and 
continue it. When you are roused, you take the 
shock and are shocked; then you react, assert 
yourself as distinct; then you control the shock, 
and take it along with you as something canceled. 
The end-organ particularizes the grand sea of 
vibrations flowing to the organism, confines them 
to one small nerve-channel, gives the first change 
from outer to inner by adding to the vibration 



SENSATION. 99 

the neural cyclical principle. The second change 
takes place when the molecular movement rouses 
the mental act or the Ego, which also accepts, 
then reacts and cancels the successive molecular 
wave, and so reaches back to the starting-point 
of this wave. The Ego therein annuls Time and 
Space, or succession and extension, and thus is 
purely internal. 

The Ego is non-material, that is, the negation 
of matter. The last and finest movement of mat- 
ter, the neural molecular movement, it has 
reversed, othered (or altered), negated. It others 
the neural line to the periphery of the organism, 
feels and localizes the stimulus ; it reaches beyond 
the organism through the vibratory movement to 
the object starting the same, taking it up, cancel- 
ing it, thus sensing the object. The brain in and 
of itself cannot cancel the vibrations of the object, 
because it must itself vibrate in response ; it is 
too like them to master them; it cannot hold 
them ideally, but propagates them really, though 
in a finer form. The mind which grasps vibra- 
tion must be more than vibration, which cannot 
seize itself; the Ego is just that which can turn 
back after separation and grasp itself. Vibra- 
tion has to be reversed, else it would go on, wave 
after wave, forever ; vibration must be trans- 
formed into Ego, when it becomes Sensation. 

In comprehending Sensation the most impor- 
tant thing is to show that the Ego, in annulling 



100 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS, 

the neural molecular movement, preserves it 
ideally, that this annulling is a taking-up and 
othering of it, yet just therein a keeping of it. 
(Compare Hegel's use of the German word Auf- 
heben.) We shall find the Ego proceding thus 
with its object throughout its entire movement. 
For instance the Ego in memory has an image of 
the object; the real object is canceled, but still is 
ideally preserved. The procedure of the Ego is 
not, therefore, annihilation, but a kind of trans- 
lation of the outer into the inner; the destructive 
act does not destroy but saves. Even in the 
physical world we may sometimes note a similar 
fact. Was not the destruction of Pompeii that 
which has preserved it to this day? That old 
Eoman town had long since vanished, unless it 
had once been overwhelmed by Vesuvius. Now 
we pass through its houses and thread its narrow 
streets, and behold it quite as it was 1,800 years 
ago ; destruction has saved what else had per- 
ished by Time, so that we see that destruction 
has really destroyed destruction, or negation has 
negatived itself and become a positive reality. 

In like manner, Sensation negates the object 
as external in order to take it up and possess it. 
The object passses through the zero-point of the 
Ego, losing its extension, its geometrical shape, its 
materiality. But just this negative process is its 
preservation and the basis of its reconstruction ; 
the Ego recreates it, projects it anew, makes it 



SENSATION. 101 

real. For I do not get an image, I get the real 
object; the image of the tree I know as image, 
but the real tree 1 know as reality. Once more 
we must make plain to ourselves, that the Ego 
has to create over again in external shape every- 
thing that it senses; it has to make the world 
anew, after the original divine fiat, in order to 
possess the world. Such creative act is, however, 
conditioned upon the annulment of the external 
object, which annulment in its turn is annulled, 
and the positive result is the reality as given in 
Sensation by the Ego. 

One should go to the bottom of the matter and 
try to see how the Ego can negate the extended 
object. In the first place, the object as extended 
is itself in an external, alienated, negative condi- 
tion, being the opposite of Self. Now the Ego 
too is the different in itself, yet also the return 
out of the same ; hence it can respond to the 
negative character of the extended object and 
also overcome it. Such is, in fact, the movement 
of the Ego as subject-object. The material 
thing is made subject by the Ego, but this is also 
object in itself. So the material thing through 
its negation by the Ego is ideally preserved and 
reproduced as object by the Ego — which is the 
completed act of Sensation. 



102 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

General Observations on Sensation. 

The discussion of Sensation (often confused 
with Perception) occupies a large place in the 
history of Thought. It is the gate of Psychology, 
not by any means easy to pass and not infre- 
quently, we fear, it is never passed, even by 
some who write on the science. We shall append 
a few miscellaneous observations, which may 
serve to illustrate and to re-state partially the 
positions taken in the preceding account. 

1. Certain questions will be naturally asked in 
this connection. Where does the transfer take 
place between matter and mind? The form of 
this interrogation makes the answer contradic- 
tory. Where is demanded. Now if you locate 
the mind, you put it into space, you make it 
material, finite. The very point is that the mind 
must annul not only place but the molecular 
movement from place to place. The answer 
might be: this transfer occurs everywhere along 
the material lines from the object to the Ego, all 
of which is just the reversal of such a movement. 

Similar is the question, Whereabouts is the 
Ego situated in the brain or body? Where is 
the seat of the soul? Des Cartes, as is well 
known, located the latter in the pineal gland. 
But the same difficulty happens. How can you 
put into a given place that which transcends 
place, negates it and reduces it to an element or 



SENSATION. 103 

moment? The point of connection is not to 
be found with the finest microscope, for the 
reason that it is not a point, not a place. 

Where does the brain touch the Ego? It does 
not touch the Ego ; if it could, the latter would 
drop back into matter, into difference, which it 
has just transcended and negated in order to be 
Ego. The external object touches the nerve- 
ending, but the function of the Ego is to cancel 
this contact, and so take it up ideally into itself. 
That is, the Ego is just the negation of material 
contact, and only on account of this can it 
feel. 

We may also ask when does all this transpire? 
After or before what ? The answer can be given : 
It transpires instantaneously and all the while. 
The Ego transcends Time as well as Space, else 
it were not the Ego. There is no temporal suc- 
cession in the return to the point of contact or to 
the external object; the Sensation is at once. 
To be sure, we can originate a molecular move- 
ment outward through the efferent nerve by an 
act of will, which is the finitizing of the Ego, 
but the intellectual act is the reverse. 

The animal has Sensation, or what Aristotle 
calls the sensitive soul. The animal feels, has 
locomotion ; in this stage man and animal are 
alike. The differentiation between them takes 
place in the higher activities of mind; yet even 
there it is very gradual, it is not so easy to dis- 



104 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

prove that the animal is wholly incapable of what 
we call thinking. 

Many attempts have been made to state the 
process of Sensation. To say that the externa] 
object brings a stimulus to the nerve-end, and 
the afferent nerve carries the message to the 
brain, where it is registered for the Ego or mind 
to read, is no account of Sensation in its com- 
plete process. The great question is : How does 
the stimulus reach the Ego, what change takes 
place in the latter, and why is it that the Ego 
reaches out and takes in the object? The 
insight must be had that the Ego is in itself the 
negation of the incoming wave, of the external, 
of matter ; it is the other of the outside and of 
what comes from the outside, being the very 
process of internalization in the present sphere ; 
it is the making of the object ideal, Sensation 
has begun to ideate the material world. 

The movement of the object to the Ego is a 
progression in Space and Time, and hence meas- 
urable. The period required for light to come 
from an object to the eye, then to pass from the 
eye to the brain, is subject to quantity. The 
rapidity of the molecular movement from the 
hand to the brain has been measured by scientists, 
as is claimed; 111 feet per second is its rate 
according to Helmholtz ; certainly it has the ele- 
ment of mensuration. But when this progression 
mouses the Ego, it stops, it is reversed, it is 



SENSATION. 105 

made the opposite. Thus the infinite progress 
of matter (as well as of Space and Time) is 
transformed by the Ego into the infinite process 
of mind. The former may be conceived as a 
straight line running ad infinitum, the Litter may 
be conceived as circular, a return into Self, or a 
cycle. 

We may conceive the cycle of Sensation with 
two halves; the first is the sweep from the object 
to the Ego, or material ; the second is the sweep 
from the Ego to the object, or ideal. Or we may 
say that the external world in its manifold phases 
flows in waves to the universal sea of the Ego, 
where all particularity of Matter, Space and Time 
is swallowed up, yet preserved, and made to 
appear again ideally in Sensation. The whole 
progressive movement from object to Ego is 
material, modulatory, successive; the whole re- 
gressive movement from Ego to object is ideal, 
instantaneous, and the total cycle. The medium 
of the first — air, luminiferous ether, molecular 
nerve-fluid — is material; but the medium of the 
second is of the spirit, is non-material, being 
just the negation of matter. 

Undoubtedly the comprehension of the thought 
before us requires, that we elevate our thinking 
out of its material form, out of the image taken 
from nature, into the form of the Ego. Think- 
ing is of two kinds; one kind bears simply the 
impress of externality, of material things, but 



106 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the other seizes the very act of internality, and 
holds it up before itself as the complete process 
of the Ego. It is true that the Ego is here taken 
for granted, being the assumption of all psychol- 
ogy, as well as of all knowledge. 

There is a natural tendency to place the Ego 
in the brain, inasmuch as the external stimulation 
goes to the brain where the Ego is roused. Let 
us grant so much of a localizing of the Ego, 
which, however, immediately annuls such loca- 
tion, and feels on the surface of the organism, 
and sees at a distance from it. If we accept the 
place where for the Ego, at once it is not there 
but elsewhere. Unquestionably the Ego must 
take up externality, then annul it, and finally 
reproduce it. Such is its process. The Ego is 
the indifference-point (negation of difference), 
through which the external world must pass in 
order to be sensed, and by which it must be 
posited anew. At first the Ego (being difference 
also) adopts, takes up, responds to externality; 
herein the Ego might be called both material and 
local ; yet it annuls this externality, indeed it 
receives the same in order to annul it, and thus 
asserts itself as non-material and non-local. 

2. Thus in a general way we conceive the pas- 
sage from the world outside to the world inside, 
from non-Ego to Ego, from matter to soul. 
Often in previous ages has the problem been raised 
and labored over; but at the present time we see 



SENSATION. 107 

a renewed effort. There are really three prob- 
lems involving three difficult transitions. The 
external object is the source of vibrations ; how 
do these vibrations spring up? Then the vibra- 
tion must be converted into nerve-energy or a 
molecular movement ; what is the explanation of 
such a change? Finally the molecular agitation 
rouses the Ego and Sensation is the result. The 
outer world starts a movement which is first 
innerved and then is egoized in its primal shape. 

A group of psychologists are occupying them- 
selves with the organic side of Sensation spe- 
cially. Their chief category or distinctive predi- 
cate is that of the neural molecular movement, 
by which they seek to explain mind. But mind 
is the reversal, the opposite of such a movement; 
the Ego has, as often said already, to negate the 
ongoing material undulation of any kind, and 
return to the starting point thereof. 

The nature of the Ego is well illustrated by its 
treatment of the image on the retina of the eye. 
That image is, of course, a shadow, not reality, 
as is the image in a mirror. But this shadow is 
transformed into reality when it reaches the Ego. 
Yonder tree which I see may be a shadow on the 
retina, yet it is a real tree to the Ego, which will 
not accept the shadow but converts it to reality. 
The molecular image it transmutes back to nature. 
When I see the shadow of a tree, I know it to be 
shadow, and I do not mistake it for the actual 



108 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tree, unless I am in some state of delusion. The 
vibration transforms the real object to image, 
but the Ego returns and transforms the image 
back to reality. 

Nor is this all. The image of the object is 
inverted on the retina," and so it must be trans- 
mitted to the Ego. Still we do not see the 
external world turned upside down ; there is a 
correction of the inversion somewhere. Such a 
correction can only take place in the Ego, when 
it cancels the entire vibratory line and resumes 
it as its own. Thus the inversion is inverted 
back again, and the image is made to return to 
reality. 

Nor is this yet all. There is a double image 
on two retinas ; the outer object is duplicated on 
its way to the Ego by the two eyes, yet we do 
not see double, unless by some derangement of 
vision. The object is much reduced in size on 
the retina, yet this reduction is also corrected- 
Many of these corrections in regard to the external 
object are the result of experience, yet experience 
itself is only possible through the Ego. 

Herein we see a total reconstruction along the 
entire line from the object to Ego. The act of 
vision is primarily a destruction of externality 
which is reduced to a shadow and then to zero, 
just in order that it be reconstructed and restored 
through the Ego, which thus gets to be master 
and indeed creator of the external. 



SENSATION. 109 

Thus do we seek to think Sensation, and to 
formulate the thought thereof. Still the essence 
of the matter lies not in the naked formula, but 
in the thinking of the thought. The process 
cannot well be remembered, for the activity is 
not that of memory but of thinking. Memory 
may recall the words, but thinking is the original 
creative energy of the process itself; to get pos- 
session of this we have to re-think it every time. 
The Ego is not a machine with which you can 
manufacture results ; you cannot put your problem 
into the hopper and grind out the answer by 
turning the crank. To a degree you must make 
over the machine every time it is used, you will 
make it more easily because you have made it 
before, still it has to be re-made. The E^o 
exists but potential^, till it be active, then it 
exists really. The Ego has to make itself in 
order to be actual ; without such self-activity it 
is as if it were not — a mere possibility. 

3. In this transition from non-Ego to Ego, from 
matter to mind, or from the extended to the non- 
extended, the term unknowable has intrenched 
itself specially, though it has been applied in a 
number of other relations. Says Hamilton : 
" How the immaterial can b"e united with matter, 
how the unextended can apprehend extension, 
how the indivisible can measure the divided — 
this is the mystery of mysteries to man." 
( Works of JReid, Note D.) But the Ego is the 



110 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

divided, the separated within itself, as every act 
of consciousness will tell; and it is also the united 
in the return to self. Mind is what matter is, yet 
is just the negation of matter, as is implied in 
the word non-material. It would seem that 
Hamilton, though he has written so much on the 
nature of consciousness and believes in it so 
firmly, had never fully analyzed his Ego and seen 
it as a process. It may also be noted that the 
above extract makes unnecessary confusion by 
putting the negation where it does not belong, as 
for instance, the unextended (mind) is contrasted 
with the extended (matter). But really the 
extended (matter) ought to have the negative in 
it, since it is the negation, the opposite, the other 
of mind. The true way of expressing the above 
dualism is by the terms Ego and non-Ego, 
inasmuch as the material world is the negative of 
the Ego, which negative the latter has to overcome 
in order to know the same. 

Here we ought to make a brief examination of 
the so-called idea of the Unknowable, which has 
wound itself under many forms into our liter- 
ature, and into our habits of thinking or rather 
of not thinking, (a) It is a self-devouring con- 
tradiction. When we are able to affirm that a 
thing is unknowable, we know a good deal about 
it already, indeed the essential fact of it. If we 
declare that a certain territory is unknowable, 
we must have been over the border and have 



SENSATION. Ill 

brought back a very important piece of knowl- 
edge. To be sure, I may say that such a ter- 
ritory is unknown, and draw the limit of my 
knowledge at a certain line ; but concerning 
what is beyond that line I can make no predica- 
tions, least of all that it is unknowable, (b) The 
man who uses such a term, and talks it to us in 
a long discourse, or spreads it before us in print 
over many pages, presupposes just the opposite 
in us, the listeners or readers ; he takes for 
granted that we can know his Unknowable 
unless he is making game of us and slyly play- 
ing a practical joke. In like manner, he who 
declares that truth is unknowable, or that man 
cannot know truth, unconsciously assumes that 
there is one truth knowable, namely, that man 
cannot know the truth. The universe rests 
upon affirmation, not upon negation; specially 
does it rest upon the affirmation of knowl- 
edge, of spirit; language itself refuses to be 
made the tool of the negative, and, even in 
denying, secretly affirms, (c ) Just the opposite 
we assert to be the essence of mind — it is the 
knowable, the self-revealing, the self-uttering. 
Moreover the world is the knowable in all its 
manifestations, its destiny is to be known and 
not to remain unknown. Undoubtedly there are 
things unknown to us at present; but the move- 
ment of man is from the unknown to the known. 
The sources of the Nile furnished the proverb 



112 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

for the unknown to all classical antiquity, to 
Egypt itself, and to modern ages down to the 
present generation; but now we have to throw 
away the proverb. The adage about seeing into 
the millstone still holds, but it is in danger ap- 
parently; within the last few months (1896) 
men have begun to look into the human body, 
hitherto opaque, and locate objects inside of it 
through a new kind of ray. Man's grand pred- 
icate is the knowable, being just the essence of 
his Ego which in its very process rises out of all 
limits, even its own, The Unknowable denies 
his spirit, crushes him back into impassable 
bounds, or tries to do so, as if to -make him a 
homunculus in his little glass bottle. 

Nor can we help taking brief notice of the air 
of modesty, sometimes of downright humility, 
which the Unknowable is inclined to put on. Its 
follower is so much more modest than that other 
man, who, brazen-faced, affirms the right, nay 
the necessity of the Ego, to assert itself , and to 
free itself of the fetters of ignorance and of 
error. I have often to confess that a certain 
matter is unknown to me ; but because it may be 
unknown to me, I do not need to say out of sheer 
modesty that it is unknowable. In fact, I am led 
to wonder at my marvelous modesty, which leads 
me to think that what I do not know and may 
not be able to know, is unknowable and so must 
remain unknown to mankind forever. 



SENSATION. 113 

It is strange that * ( the philosophy of experi- 
ence" is employed to bolster up the Unknowable 3 
yet if we take the experience of the last one 
hundred years, what does it say in regard to the 
limits of knowledge ? If we judge of the advance- 
ment of science in the past, what is the inference 
as to its future? Just the opposite of the Un- 
knowable; experience rather affirms that all is 
knowable. 

4. If the Ego can take up so many forms of 
difference in nature, why all this change and 
refinement of vibration? The outer undulation 
of the air or of the ether (so-called) is trans- 
formed and refined into the molecular movement 
of the nerves; this again is refined still more in 
the brain, till it stimulates the Ego, which takes 
it up, and then others the whole line to the ex- 
ternal object. But why so many changes, and 
supposed refinements of the undulatory line from 
the object to the Ego — no less than three ? Why 
does not the Ego take up the external line at 
once, if it be able to respond to it? In general, 
the answer may be given that only thus are the 
distinctions of nature taken up and internalized 
by the Ego. The different vibrations of light 
and sound have to be received by the organism 
as different, through the special senses, and then 
ideated into the unity of the Ego, which in this 
way gets external difference. Without such dis- 
tinction and specialization hearing and sight 



114 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

would drop down to a kind of touch, which is 
the general sense, as yet undifferentiated. The 
organism receives them as different, taking them 
from the external world, and then unifying them 
in a central organ, which is the stimulus of the 
Ego. That is, the Ego first accepts from the 
outside this difference, then cancels it into unity 
with itself and finally reproduces it, which last 
act completes the sensation of the external 
world. 

What is the use of the image on the retina? 
It is mediatorial ; thus the Ego can take up form, 
external limited form with all its lines, and see 
the object as such. For the image, though taken 
up, must also be canceled, and therein ideally 
preserved as the object itself. Mark, therefore, 
that we do not see the image, which is negated, 
but the object as real. No doubt the image 
represented the object on the retina, but the 
point is that this representation must be canceled, 
so that the real object is seen, is present in the 
Ego, not present in the brain, as is sometimes 
said ; for if the material object were present in 
the material brain, the latter would have the 
worst of the situation and probably die on the 
spot. But the Ego cannot be so hurt by the 
presence of the object in it. The luminiferous 
vibrations present the form and the lines of the 
object to the special peripheral organ, the eye, 
which takes it up; no other sense can take it up, 



SENSATION. 115 

the ear cannot see, just as little can the eye hear. 
This difference, then, is still preserved in the 
Ego, and indeed projected into externality. 

5. This transition from the non-Ego to the 
Ego, or matter to spirit, is the starting-point for 
three chief attitudes of the mind, three views of 
the world, three methods of philosophizing which 
have prevailed since man began to think, and are 
three main strands of the history of philosophy. 
(a) The materialistic view maintains some form 
of molecular movement, of external succession, 
to be the explanation of mental activity. In one 
way or other it denies the ideal return of the Ego, 
and employs in place thereof some phase of 
material progression. (6) The dualistic view 
holds to the absolute separation of the two sides, 
or declares their union as something incompre- 
hensible. We can at most see the separation or 
the absolute difference between two elements, 
mind and matter; then we observe them united 
in an act of perception or sensation ; but how 
this separation passes into unity is just the 
unknowable, (c) The idealistic view takes many 
forms; it may quite deny externality and other- 
ness, or at least the ability to know the same. 
But it may give to externality the fullest object- 
ive right, and still behold it as a manifestation of 
mind, with which mind fraternizes. 

It has been often felt that there is a theistic 
element in knowing; this too has found many 



116 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

forms of expression. The Cartesians elaborated 
the doctrine of Occasional Causes, and seem in 
the main to have deemed the knowing of matter 
by mind, of the extended by the unextended as 
the direct act of God, a special intervention of 
the deity for the occasion. Leibnitz developed 
in opposition his theory of Pre-established 
Harmony, which reduced the many acts of spe- 
cial providence to one primal creative act ; God 
wound up mind on the one hand and matter on 
the other, as if they were two watches, and set 
them both to running ; both continue to go 
together and in harmony, though each is wholly 
independent of the other. The Scotch school 
seeks chiefly to refute the representative theory 
of Perception (better, Sensation), and so is 
essentially polemical and negative ; for it does 
not try to explain its doctrine of Immediate 
Perception positively, but denies in the most 
explicit manner the comprehensibility of its own 
cardinal fact. It batters down the enemy's view, 
but that does not prove that its own view is 
correct. 

6. As set forth in the preceding account, 
Sensation is the internalizing of the sensuous 
object immediately ; whatever comes is received ; 
there is no break, no fixed separation, no inter- 
ruption in the flow from outer to inner. In like 
manner the Ego is one continuous succession of 
states, each quite displacing the other; it 



SENSATION. 117 

responds to the influence from without, hardly 
maintaining its conscious Self in the stream of 
external impressions. 

But the Ego has difference, separation in its 
complete process, which is next to manifest 
itself. The Ego will, accordingly, lay hold of 
the particular object, separate it, distinguish it 
from other objects. Therein the Ego asserts its 
self-hood, its individuality, refusing to be swal- 
lowed up in this deluge of the sense-world. A 
new phase of Sense-perception thus opens, which 
we have called distinctively, Perception. 



SECOND SECTION — PEBCEPTIOK. 

It has been already noted that Perception is 
the second stage of the Ego in the total process 
of Sense-perception. That is, the Ego is in its 
divisive stage primarily; it separates, isolates, 
particularizes the object of sense, holding it 
apart from the flow of Sensation ; then it iden- 
tifies this object with itself, projecting the same 
into the world as a real individual. 

In traveling through a country, trees, hills, 
houses, streams sweep through the mind in 
rapid succession, making a moving panorama of 
varied scenery. But I stop the flow and direct 
the mind to a single object, a peculiar kind of 
tree, separating it from every thing else. I sense 
all the other objects, but I perceive the tree. In 
this case, the total act of Sensation I seize and 
do not permit to vanish, the Ego instinctively or 
(118) 



PEBCEPTION. 119 

voluntarily begins to control the object from 
within, rescuing it, as it were, from the great 
river of Sensation. To be sure the object must 
come from the outside to the Ego, which first 
senses it and then perceives it, holding it fast, 
making it permanent. Plainly the Ego is getting 
herein a new mastery of the external world. 

Perception, accordingly, is the Ego separating 
some special object or element in the stream of 
Sensation, identifying the same with itself, and 
then reproducing it as particularized in the 
external world. 

In Sensation every object of the external world 
which presents itself to the senses, is taken up, 
so that there is an incessant inrushing flow of 
outer stimulation to the organism. A con- 
tinuous stream from the circumjacent environ- 
ment is rolling in upon the Ego, which will be 
absorbed therein, unless it assert itself and start 
to master the incoming current of the sense- 
world. This is the general function of Percep- 
tion, which will seize hold of some particular 
object of the total stream, and make the same its 
own. 

The terms Sensation and Perception have been 
much used in Psychology and often very sharply 
discriminated. Still they have remained some- 
what vague in spite of the lengthy discussion by 
Hamilton, Porter, and others. The distinction 
between them, even when correctly made as to 



120 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

matter, has been capricious in form; the psy- 
chologist has not traced their genesis back to 
the movement of the Ego, but has picked up the 
terms pnd their difference from the outside ap- 
parently at random. To be sure, he has evolved 
their meaning from himself, but what we wish 
to see is their evolution out of the Self as such. 
In other words we must have the Psychosis, the 
complete psychical process of which Sensation 
and Perception are but two separate stages, 
before we can fully reach around and take in 
their meaning. 

The Ego in Perception will manifest its move- 
ment in three distinct phases of activity, which we 
shall call Impression, Attention, and Retention. 

Of the three, the first is more the involuntary 
act of the Ego, moved from the outside to seize 
the external object; the second is more the vol- 
untary act of the Ego, moved from within to 
seize the object ; the third may result from both 
the involuntary and voluntary act of the Ego, 
which now not only seizes, separates and particu- 
larizes the external object, but also retains the 
same, that is, removes it from the external con- 
ditions of Space and Time. 

Already in Sensation we could not wholly leave 
out Space andTime. In sensing the external object 
in contact with the bodily periphery as well as at 
a distance from it, we ran upon the Space- 
conception, though in a very indistinct way. In 



PERCEPTION. 121 

like manner, succession in Time is involved in 
every form of undulatory movement, and thus 
underlies every cycle of Sensation. We shall 
now give a short discussion of Space and 
Time, since they are very prominent elements of 
Perception, and will henceforth be woven into 
the whole movement of Psychology. The 
beginner may find the subject somewhat difficult 
at first; he can omit the following note (extending 
to Impression) till he returns for a review, or 
feels the need of grappling with all the pre- 
suppositions of the science. 

Note on Space and Time. In every age 
Space and Time have attracted the attention of 
philosophers, poets, myth-makers; they appear 
as the external setting of all things ; they are 
pure externality, in contrast with the Ego which 
is pure internality. Yet the Ego has to take 
them up and internalize them, these complete 
opposites of itself; it is at first conditioned by 
them, but it must at last reach over and embrace 
its own condition ; thus it is free, self-contained, 
self-determined. 

We have already found that in consciousness 
the Ego distinguished itself from the non-Ego, 
or object," which is external to the Ego, and 
then it cognized the non-Ego or object (see In- 
troduction, p. 29). Thus externality is posited 
by the cognition of the object — externality, 
outerness, otherness. I must first other the 



122 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

thing in order to know it, but in knowing it I 
make it my own, identify it with my Ego, even 
as the opposite of my Ego. What is the result 
of this process? I know the object as opposite 
and external to my Ego which is Self; thus the 
object is external to Self as such; being out- 
side the Ego, it is outside of Self, and so outside 
of itself ; or, it is the other of itself, being the 
other of Self, which Self can be only the Ego. 
So the sensuous object of the Ego is cognized as 
the opposite of the Ego, of selfhood ; thus it is 
spatial, each particle of it is outside the other 
particle, and remains in that way ; also the object, 
being external to Self, is changeful, transitory, 
temporal. In other words, the object of Sense- 
perception is flung by the Ego into Space and 
Time, which are none the less its natural condi- 
tions, the actual fact of its being, as we shall see. 
Still further is the externality of the Ego 
carried in Sense-perception ; it perceives not 
only the sensuous object as spatial and tempo- 
ral, but rises to a perception of the pure forms 
of Space and Time. The sensuous object of the 
Ego is not simply particular, not simply this 
extended and transitory thing of Sensation, but 
the Ego as such is externalized, is made into 
pure otherness of itself as its object. Not this 
particular example of otherness, such as is the 
object perceived, but the total Ego is now to 
be seen as the other to itself, and, being so, it 



PERCEPTION. 123 

becomes the universal otherness to Self which we 
call Space and Time, and in which the particular 
percept is posited. For all Perception is par- 
ticular, put into the form of Here and Now, 
limited to the immediate present ; still this limit 
will be transcended, and the percept we shall see 
rescued from the devouring maw of the Void and 
the Vanishing. Therein the Ego will rise above 
its particular, limited form of otherness, such as 
is given in the sensuous object, and attain to a 
perception of the pure forms of Space and Time. 
As already implied repeatedly, this self-exter- 
nality falls into two forms, both of which are 
derived from the process of the Ego, its identity 
and its difference. First is the externality to 
Self, which is identity with difference canceled, 
simple oneness, fixity, homogeneousness — 
Space — each point of which is external to itself, 
yet identical with itself, infinitely divisible, abso- 
lutely penetrable, the possibility of all shapes, 
being itself the shapeless ; whose individuality it 
is to be totally devoid of individuality. Then 
there is difference with identity canceled; the 
point is now different from itself continuously, 
repelling itself from itself, thus becoming a 
moment, which, when it is, is not; so there is 
movement, an endless identical movement of 
pure difference — Time. Space is one beside 
the other, which other is the one again — simple 
extension (alongsideness). Time is one after 



124 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the other, which other is the one again — simple 
succession (afterness). Thus the process of the 
Ego falls completely asunder, being externalized ; 
first it divides into Space and Time, then each 
of these infinitely sub-divide into points mutually 
exclusive and self-external. 

Space may be conceived of as absolute rest, 
Time as absolute unrest, yet both absolutely 
vacant ; one is blank permanence, the other 
blank transitoriness, both being blank. Space 
is the Void, the Universe emptied of everything 
except it own emptiness; Time is the Vanish- 
ing, the Universe emptying itself of everything 
except its own emptying. The Psychosis of Time 
and Space is to see them as the process of the 
Ego completely fallen asunder and externalized, 
reduced to a state of absolute otherness, yet 
therein still itself. 

Thus the percept gets from the Ego the form 
of the spatial and temporal ; also the Ego posits 
pure Space and Time as objects to itself. Yet 
these are also real, existent in the world, not 
simply subjective or mine, not simply my object 
without any corresponding reality. There is 
likewise the universal Ego, the divine, creative 
Ego, to which Space and Time are also object, 
for this Ego too must other itself and become 
external to itself, wherein lies its divine, creative 
act, one of whose manifestations is the real 
externality of Space and Time. 



PEBCEPTION. 125 

Here we may notice Kant's doctrine, from 
which most of the modern discussions of this 
subject have proceeded. The German philoso- 
pher holds that Space and Time are merely 
forms of intuition (Anschauung) which we may 
translate in the present connection to be forms 
of the Ego in Sense-perception (Kritik der 
reinen Vernunft, die transcendentale Aesthetik). 
That is, Space and Time are only subjective 
forms, in which the Ego senses things, and have 
no real objectivity. Such a view reduces them 
to a mere appearance, a delusion, a lie told by 
the world to the Ego. But Space and Time are 
also objective, creations of the divine Ego, in 
fact just its externality, otherness, outsideness 
of Self, since it must also be the opposite of 
itself to be the totality. Thus the eternal 
creative Idea makes itself its own object, first in 
the purely external forms of Space and Time, 
which are, accordingly, the other of Self in its 
absolute being. In Sense-perception the Ego not 
only cognizes but recognizes Space and Time as 
real, as the objectification of the universal Ego 
whose knowing is creating. The human Ego as 
subject-object recognizes the act of the divine 
Ego which is also subject-object, and identifies 
the same with itself, which identification is 
knowledge. That is, in order to be truly known, 
my Space and Time must be recognized and 
identified as God's Space and Time. 



126 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Thus again we note that a theistic (not theo- 
logic) strand winds through all psychology, over- 
arching the science of knowing (epistemology) 
from beginning to end. The individual Ego 
through knowing the external world, and reach- 
ing up from cognition to recognition, mediates 
itself with the Divine Ego, and the consciousness 
of man finds its true counterpart and fulfillment in 
the consciousness of God. 

I. Impression. 

The object in the stream of Sensation is dis- 
tinguished and particularized by the Ego spon- 
taneously, that is, without a conscious act of the 
Will. There is, in Impression, a specializing 
both of the object and of the Ego, but this spe- 
cializing act is as yet instinctive and involuntary. 
Impression is an involuntary Attention. 

The movement of the Ego in Impression is 
from its most external form as an automatic re- 
sponse to an outer stimulus, through its native 
bent to take up with some outside object by a 
kind of natural selection, to its acquired ten- 
dency for being impressed by certain things, 
which tendency, starting usually from inborn 
inclination or talent, is unfolded through the 
acquisitions of culture. 

Thus we may observe, in the movement of 
Impression, the general sweep of the Ego, whose 



PERCEPTION. 127 

three stages herein can be designated as the 
organic, the native s and the cultured Impres- 
sion. 

The perceptive Ego receives the stream of sen- 
sations coming from the external world, which 
have in themselves variety, difference, degrees 
of intensity. Also this perceptive Ego is pre- 
disposed, through innate tendency and acquired 
equipment, to take up more directly and decid- 
edly some of these sensations than others. That 
is, it is more interested in certain objects than in 
others. The result is, a selection takes place, 
from the outside through some energy in the 
thing, as well as from the inside through some 
interest of the Ego. 

Such is, in general, the first stage of Percep- 
tion, which we have named Impression. The 
word puts stress upon the determining power of 
the external object in relation to the Ego which 
is modified by that power, and which responds 
immediately to the differences of the external 
world of Sensation. The Impression by its 
nature is immediate, instinctive, not consciously 
voluntary. Still the Ego in Impression has its 
process, its development, moving from with- 
out to within, from external determination 
through the object toward internal determina- 
tion through itself. Yet this activity of the Ego 
in Impression never reaches the volitional stage, 
but remains spontaneous. The phases of the 



128 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

present movement we shall set apart more dis- 
tinctly. 

I. The Ego, in the first place, responds im- 
mediately to the differences in the stream of 
Sensation, through the reaction of the organism. 
Such is the experience in case of a sudden pres- 
sure, pinch, or prick, a loud noise or a vivid 
light. This is the most external form of Im- 
pression, since the Ego is so completely deter- 
mined from the outside, through the affection of 
the organism. Still such an Impression is not 
merely the reflex action of the muscles or of the 
nerves, though this be involved. A brainless 
frog cannot have Impression, though its muscles 
twitch in response to an irritation. 

II. Native differences, in the next place, ap- 
pear in the Ego itself, which responds to the 
differences of the object in Sensation. The child 
begins to notice certain things, we say ; the 
light attracts it in distinction from darkness ; it 
laughs in answer to its mother's laugh. The 
differences of the external world reaching it 
through the senses, begin to call forth the innate 
differences in its Ego, which develop into 
temperament, talent, character. Early impres- 
sions are noted for their power, permanence, and 
even formative influence. The educator will 
carefully observe what impresses the child, what 
outer objects or actions find in it the response of 
attention, or interest, or imitation. The so- 



PERCEPTION. 129 

called bent of nature first manifests itself in the 
answer which the child's Ego makes instinctively 
to the world of Sensation. 

III. The acquired differences of the Ego, that 
.is, its different acquisitions in the form of knowl- 
edge, character, taste, respond to the differences 
of Sensation. A barbarian and a civilized man 
receive very different impressions from the same 
object. A Gothic window impresses a rustic and 
an architect diversely, still both are impressed. 
Here an apperceptive power plays in, the Im- 
pression is modified according to the content of 
the Ego. The main point is, however, that the 
Ego, though still immediately determined by the 
object of Sensation, modifies it, indeed may 
choose it or reject it in an unconscious way. 

The acquired differences of the Ego, which 
have become instinctive, go back in most cases 
to native differences, which have been developed 
by activity and by fresh acquisitions in the same 
direction. One develops into culture on foun- 
dations largely given by nature ; the talent for 
art is an inborn one, yet it has also to be inbred, 
ere it comes to much. Thus the native and the 
acquired elements fuse indistinguishably in the 
Ego which receives the Impression, and deter- 
mines the latter, spontaneously, however. 

In this manner the Ego passes from being 
impressed by the object in the most external 
fashion by means of the reaction of the organ- 

9 



130 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ism, to an Impression in which the Ego contrib- 
utes the largest part through its native and 
acquired qualities. This brings us to the point 
at which the Ego starts to determine itself from 
within consciously; it begins to choose its own 
object, to separate the same from the stream of 
Sensation, by an act of Will, and to appropriate 
this object of its choice. From Impression, 
which is an involuntary Attention, we pass to the 
voluntary one. 

II. Attention. 

Attention, as the second stage of Perception, 
distinguishes itself from Impression in being 
voluntary or intentional. The Ego from within 
determines itself, and moves forth to get posses- 
sion of the sensuous object, which possession 
involves its reproduction. 

The movement of Attention is from the Ego 
particularizing and concentrating itself within 
itself, through its separating and particulariz- 
ing the object in the stream of Sensation, to its 
internalizing and reproducing the same as a 
particular object. 

In the complete act of Attention, accordingly, 
there must be the concentration of Self, the partic- 
ularization of the object, and the uniting of the 
particularized object with the Self. All these 
three stages or phases are, however, one act of 



PERCEPTION. 131 

the Ego in its threefold movement, which, when 
performed as a single immediate process of mind, 
shows the Psychosis of Attention. 

In popular speech we are often said " to mind 
a thing," that is, to put the whole mind upon an 
object, to focus our thoughts upon some particu- 
lar thing. Such an act is, in general, an act of 
Attention. There is first the mind focusing 
itself, secondly the object focused, thirdly the 
unification of the two, whereby the object 
becomes ideated or perceived. It is well to note 
again that this object, when perceived, is projected 
by the Ego into externality. 

It is also well to observe at what point in the 
total mental evolution Attention is introduced. 
Out of what does it develop and into what? In 
other words the procedure must be genetic, At- 
tention must arise in its proper place and define 
itself. It is not to be picked up on any emer- 
gency and thrust into some psychological gap; 
it must be seen unfolding out of what has gone 
before and into what comes after. Its definition 
is not to be imposed upon it from the outside, 
but must be generated in the process of the 
Ego. Caprice, however brilliant, is not a 
sound definer. 

Attention has been very diversely treated by 
psychologists. Especially do they differ as to its 
place in the evolution of mind. Some put it 
first, some last, or almost so ; some deny it as 



132 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

66 a faculty of the soul," or as a distinct mental 
activity. Some give it much attention, some 
give quite no attention to Attention. But it 
should be seen at the start unfolding out of sim- 
ple Sensation ; then its activity is continued all 
through the development of mind. There is 
quite as much Attention in Thought (the third 
stage of Intellect) as in Sense-perception (the 
first stage) ; still its unfolding belongs properly 
to the latter, where it first appears. Hence it is 
to be considered just here and not elsewhere or 
anywhere. 

In fact nothing can show the present chaotic 
method of psychologists than their treatment of 
Attention. The inner mental genesis is lost in 
mere experimentalism, or in pure caprice. This 
book, however, is not intended to be critical, and 
so we shall pass on, still holding to the faith that 
the human mind is an order and not a chaos, 
and that a prime duty of the psychologist is to 
reveal that order. 

The Ego now breaks into the stream of Sensa- 
tion which flows in upon us from the external 
world, and seizes some particular object in that 
stream, holding it fast and appropriating the 
same. The individual lives and moves in the 
realm of nature, of externality, which is always 
beating up against his senses and seeking entrance 
to his Ego. What an enormous mass of objects is 
thrust upon his organism, through vision, through 



PEBCEPTION. 133 

hearing, and through the other senses ! All are 
importunately knocking for admission to the 
inner chamber of the Ego, where they will no 
longer be external and real, but internal and ideal. 
Moreover this outer world of objects is continu- 
ally shifting, every moment the scene changes 
and a new panorama slips into vision. Now, the 
senses let in everything unless they are stopped 
and controlled ; this control is a most important 
element in psychical life ; the Ego will simply be 
drowned in the vast ocean of Sensation, unless it 
draws itself out of the same and asserts itself. 

The fundamental characteristic of Attention is, 
therefore, willed separation — separation of Self 
from the sense-world. The Ego is first affected 
by the particular object of sense, or it has a sensa- 
tion ; then it separates itself from this immediate 
affection or excitation and observes the same, 
which is as yet one with the external object. 
Thus the sensation is no longer simple sensation, 
but is held off from the Ego by the Ego, which 
thereby beholds it and makes it objective. Such 
is the primal fact of Attention — this self-con- 
centration of the Ego which comes from separat- 
ing itself from the sensation. 

Still further, the total Ego, having centered 
itself, throws its whole power upon the sensation, 
separates it from all other sensations, seizes it, 
masters it, takes it up into itself. Thus after 
the disruption comes the redintegration, and the 



134 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego takes possession of all the sensations to 
which it gives attention, storing them up, as it 
were, in its ideal storehouse. 

Were it not for Attention, the world of Sensa- 
tion would be a mere passing panorama, an ever- 
flowing stream of impressions which rise and dis- 
appear with the moment, and in which the Ego 
would be absorbed, vanishing like a river which 
sinks away and is lost in the sands of the desert. 
Attention is the Ego asserting its own self-hood 
against absorption in the sense-world, it is the 
first distinctive act of individuality and remains 
henceforth active through all Psychology. 

The educative value of Attention is of the 
highest. Mental training may be said to begin 
with this act of concentration, which frees the 
Ego from an absorption in the sense-world, 
Here the school starts ; the child, in learning the 
first letter of the alphabet, has to separate his 
Self from all external matters and throw it upon 
the one object, the letter A, which must also be 
held apart from every other object for the time 
being. The pupil is taught, first of all, to break 
the endless chain of sensations, seize the impor- 
tant link and hold it till it be internalized. Repe- 
tition must come to his aid, and repetition is 
here repeated acts of Attention. Thus Atten- 
tion is the first mastery of the sense-world as 
well as the primal assertion of selfhood against 



PERCEPTION. 135 

the might of the external. Therewith education 
has begun as regards both moral self-control and 
external knowledge. 

The object of Attention must at the start be 
chosen for the pupil by the teacher, who has 
gone in advance and organized the chaos of mere 
sensation. The selection of the best objects for 
Attention makes the best course of study. What 
are the best? That is a great pedagogical ques- 
tion, which is variously answered; but, in 
general, it may be said that those objects are 
worthiest of Attention which lead the individual 
most rapidly and securely into the highest cul- 
ture of the race. The pupil, however, must at 
last rise to making his own selection of that 
which he will attend to. 

Doubtless the Ego pays best attention to 
those things in which it has an interest. What 
is it that makes an object interesting? The Ego 
must be connected with it in some way ; the 
mind has some purpose which it subserves, 
some goal to which it leads. A botanist, a 
painter, a wood-chopper, a forester, all look at 
a tree, all have an interest in it and pay special 
Attention to it, yet in very different ways, accord- 
ing to the end which each has in view. But the 
ultimate interest of the Ego is to remove its 
limit of ignorance, to assert itself as limit-trans- 
cending, to know. To reach beyond present 
bounds is the necessity of the infinite nature of 



136 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

man ; the spirit's true interest is to rise out of 
its confines. 

In Attention, the Will is prominent, of which 
there are two kinds. Unconsciously an object 
draws Attention to itself, we may say that there 
is Will in the act, but Will spontaneous, uncon- 
scious, such as we discussed under Impression. 
Then there is the conscious effort of the Will to 
bring the Attention to a matter from which the 
mind may rebound. The primal conquest of 
the sense-world is only accomplished through 
some training of the Will in the child, who is not 
drawn to his alphabet at first by interest. Per- 
chance he has to learn to subordinate interest to 
knowledge, and to subject pleasure to duty in 
his first lesson. 

It is worth while to call to notice again the 
effect of Attention in its moral aspect. It is 
the foundation stone of character-building. 
When the child withdraws itself from the dissi- 
pation of the senses and gathers itself for a con- 
centrated effort, it has begun self-control, which 
is ethical as well as intellectual, which should 
become a habit of conduct as well as of mind. 
All its life it will be called upon to exercise this 
command of Self, which starts with the first act 
of Attention, perchance with its first self-concen- 
tration upon the letter A. Truly in learning the 
alphabet of letters, the child is learning the 



PEECEPTION. 137 

alphabet of morals. The training in intellect 
and the training in character, here at least, go 
hand in hand ; the external information is worthy, 
but the inner discipline is yet worthier. To 
master the implements of culture, such as reading 
and writing, is very necessary, but to master 
Self in the same process is the real fruit of edu- 
cation. 

In the preceding remarks the movement of the 
Ego has been stated in a discursive way for the 
purpose of a general view in advance of a more 
precise formulation. We may now proceed to 
mark distinctively the three stages of Atten- 
tion. 

I. The separation of the Ego from the stream 
of Sensation, and its self-concentration; the Ego 
particularizes itself. 

II. The separation of the sensuous object from 
the stream of Sensation through the Eot>; the 
object is particularized. 

III. The Ego returns into itself with the 
particularized object, unites and identifies the 
same with itself; the object is ideated. 

Here again we must exhort the student to 
verify the process in his own mental laboratory; 
he must make the Psychosis of Attention, unify- 
ing in a single thrust of mind all that which is 
divided, analyzed, held asunder in the preceding 
exposition. Words are inherently separative 
and separated ; only the Psychosis can overcome 



138 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the separation which lies in all speech, and 
especially in terminology. 

I. In the first place, the Ego in Attention 
must purposely separate itself from Sensation. 
The external world flows inward incessantly 
through the senses, and-floats the Ego helplessly 
away in the stream, till this Ego asserts itself as 
distinct, as Self, and holds itself apart from the 
great environing world-stream of objects. Such 
is the primal act of Attention : voluntary sepa- 
ration of the Ego from the immediate unity of 
Sensation. 

Already we have found, in discussing the 
Ego, that it had separation in its own movement, 
that it separated itself from itself in its second 
stage, to be restored to itself in its third stage. 
Perception is, in general, this second stage of the 
Ego, which therein separates itself from the stream 
of Sensation. So it must do in order to be itself, 
it cannot be swallowed up in the sense-world. 
Still further, in Attention the Ego by its own 
native movement of will frees itself from the 
external and turns back to itself, holding aloof 
the object, which is now emphatically its other 
or opposite. Let us repeat the first act of 
Attention : Self-concentration through volition, 
Self getting hold of itself, the primal deed of 
Self-mastery. 

The first stage of Attention, which pertains 
particularly to the Ego unfolding within itself as 



PEBCEPTION. 139 

related to the sensuous object, will also show the 
customary movement. 

1. First is the simple act of separation in 
which the Ego divides itself from the sense- 
world. The difference appears in its immediate 
form at the start, but the Ego cannot stay in 
such a condition. 

2. The Ego not only separates itself from the 
sense-world, but turns back into itself, collects 
itself, and holds itself off from the stream of 
Sensation, which is its opposite. The simple 
separation of the previous stage has now deep- 
ened into mutual opposition. The Ego has 
turned back and concentrated itself within itself ; 
it has made itself individual, a particular dis- 
tinct Ego, not determined from without by the 
sense-world, which it posits as its other or object, 
and so it determines the same. 

3. The Ego being now its own, the self-cen- 
tered and the self-determined, can determine the 
sense-world ; or, the Ego, having particularized 
itself, has also in the same act posited the object 
as particular, distinct, separated, and indeed 
separable in itself. Hence follows the next stage 
of Attention. 

II. As in the preceding stage the Ego separated 
itself from the stream of Sensation, and individ- 
ualized itself, so now it separates the particular 
object from the flow of external things, holds it, 
fixes it as here and now, wrenches it from the 



140 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

extension of Space and the succession of Time. 
In Sensation the object is ceaselessly fleeting and 
indefinitely connected and continued ; but in 
Attention the Ego, having particularized itself, 
next particularizes the object. Thus the latter 
becomes distinctively a percept and the Ego 
the percipient. The sensuous thing is thereby 
rescued from the transitoriness of the sense- 
world, it is drawn out of the sea of oblivion, and 
fastened by Attention, which is thus a kind of 
salvation of the object. 

Here again we may regard the movement 
somewhat more closely. Three stages: the 
immediate seizure of the object, the seizure with 
Space and the seizure with Time. 

1. The Ego having liberated itself from its 
entanglement with the sense-world in simple 
Sensation, and having asserted itself as Self, 
turns about and seizes the object of Sensation, 
which it has selected. For the Ego is also 
object, and must identify the same with itself. 
The Ego is now particular, distinct, separate, so 
it impresses its seal upon the object which it 
particularizes by attending to it, by a simple act 
of Attention. 

2. But in order more completely to particu- 
larize and to seize the object, the Ego must make 
a new separation, must distinguish the object 
from its other, from its limit. But what is that 
which is the other or the opposite of the sensu- 



PEBCEPTION. 141 

ous object? The Void or Space unfilled. From 
the object of Sensation, which is extension filled 
we pass to and beyond its limit which is extension 
unfilled or the Void, empty Space. That is, the 
Ego again shows itself as limit-transcending. 

Every sensuous object is made definite or is 
particularized by that which it is not, as well as 
by that which it is; it exists through its limit, 
This ball which I hold up is made what it is by 
what it is not; if it had no limit against every- 
thing else in this room, it would not be a ball; 
all would be ball, that is, there would be distinct- 
ively no ball. Sensation gives us a filled exten- 
sion, but Attention puts the bound upon the same 
and hence calls up a non-filled extension. The 
fact of particularizing is the placing a limit, and 
the limit is the outer negation of the object as 
extended. Thus the Ego calls forth a filled and 
a non-filled extension, which together make up 
the total perception of Space. 

In Attention, therefore, the Ego begins to 
develop into the idea of Space. To be sure it 
by no means yet grasps the creative thought of 
Space, which is one of the most recondite in all 
philosophy. 

In this spatial particularization of the object 
we can discern the subtle sweep of the Ego 
through its various stages. When the thing 
sensed is separated from the indefinite continuity 
of the sense-world, that which is cut off is ex- 



142 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tension ; the Ego puts a spatial limit upon Space, 
and thereby makes the object definite. Let us 
note its movement herein, which we may distin- 
guish as follows : — 

(1) The Ego first separates the object from 
the external series, and breaks up the sensuous 
continuity ; it senses the filled Space, which has 
a limit. Accordingly it reaches out and takes 
up this limit of the object, which limit is the 
non-being of the object, yet at the same time 
its being. Thus the Ego comes" to and grasps 
the Void, or the unfilled object, by its own ne- 
cessity moving from the filled object to the other 
or opposite thereof. (2) The Ego still holds 
fast to the object filled, now showing in itself the 
twofold element, the filled and the unfilled, or 
the object and the Void, as distinct, as opposite, 
as being and non-being. Here is the stage of the 
dualism of the Ego. (3) But each is through 
the other; there would be no object without the 
Void, and no Void without the object ; each not 
only limits the other but conditions the other. 
Thus they have a common underlying principle 
and are one; both are extended, one filled and 
the other unfilled; both are spatial and consti- 
tute Space. So the Ego psychologically begins 
to take up the Space-idea through Attention. 

3. If the Ego unites extension with the limit 
of extension, and thus gets the spatially limited 
object, in like manner it unites succession in Time 



PEBCEPTION. 143 

with the limit of succession and gets the tempor- 
ally limited object. 

The sense-world is in a perpetual flow, coming 
and going; the senses, receiving its stimulations, 
are absorbed into this everlasting flux of Sensa- 
tion. All things are in Time, it is said; still the 
flow of the Time-stream must be arrested by 
the Ego, or, rather, the Ego must free itself 
from its immediate unity with Time, and seize 
the fleeting object, hold the same, and rescue it 
from its rush to oblivion, which rescue of the 
object is the Ego's own salvation. 

Here again there must be a separation, but of 
a new sort. The spatial object, though limited 
and definite as to extension, is not yet limited as 
to succession. So the Ego puts a limit here also, 
fixes the object in Time yet against Time, holds 
it fast against the Vanishing. The Ego stops the 
indefinite succession of objects of Sensation, and 
pays Attention to the one, retaining it through a 
certain lapse of Time. Then the Ego takes up 
the other or opposite of this persistent seizure, 
which opposite is the Vanishing, and holds the 
two elements asunder. Finally, the moment, 
the point, the Now as object (or the object in the 
Now) is made to persist, by negating its evanish- 
ment; thus the present is seen to be the abiding 
element in all transitoriness. 

For instance, let us grasp by Attention this 
ball before us and study it. First we separate it 



144 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

locally from all adjacent objects, we limit it in 
Space. Then we hold it fast in the mind, not 
permitting anything else to take its place; we 
take it out of the flow of the stream of Sensa- 
tion. This holding it fast in the mind is the Ego 
persisting through Time in retaining the object, 
which is not allowed to be succeeded by any 
other object. Thus persistence, fixedness is 
attained. 

And yet the Ego, in order to get this fixedness 
of the ball in the mind, has had to reach forth 
and put down the opposite, namely the unfixed, 
the fleeting sense-world always flowing in and 
trying to sweep the object away. So the Ego, 
in seizing the fixed, must also seize the unfixed, 
the Vanishing; hence it has the dual elements, 
the fixed ball and the unfixed world round about 
the same. Thus we see that, as Space had the 
filled and the unfilled, so Time has the fixed and 
the unfixed, being both in one, which one is the 
Now, most fleeting of sublunary things, yet the 
most persistent, too, in fact the only thing that 
persists. The Now is all Time that is. 

In a most significant mythical form ancient 
Homer has hinted this nature of Time, of the 
Abiding in Change, of the Fixed in the Van- 
ishing. Ulysses is told to seize the old sea-god 
Proteus, master of shapes, who can transmute 
himself into every conceivable object in nature. 
Ulysses grasps him, and he turns to a tree, to a 



PEBCErTION. 145 

wild beast, to a running stream ; still the hero 
holds fast, through all appearances and trans- 
formations, till finally the divinity takes his true 
shape and tells his prophetic secret. The per- 
sistent hero at last gets that which persists 
through Time and is eternal amid all the fleeting 
shows of the world. 

In the temporal particularization of the 
object, we can discern the threefold movement 
of the Ego, corresponding to the same move- 
ment already noticed in the case of Space. 
(1) The Ego breaks up the succession of the 
sense-world and puts a limit upon it, by seiz- 
ing the Now, or the Object in the Now, and 
fixing the same. Yet even in this limit there 
must be the other or the opposite of the 
fixed, namely, the unfixed or the Vanish- 
ing. (2) Accordingly the Ego grasps yet holds 
asunder the dual elements which have risen in 
the object, namely the fixed and the unfixed, or 
the Now and the not-Now, or the permanent and 
the transitory. Such is the act of separation; 
the Ego in Attention, holding fast the object 
against the Time-limit, becomes aware of the 
present and the not-present, which latter is still 
further dualized into past and future, or the not- 
Now which has been and the not-Now which will 
be. Thus the separative stage of the Ego in 
Time manifests a double dualism. (3) Both 

10 



146 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

elements, the Now and the not-Now, form one 
process which is actual Time. The Now, while 
it is, is not, and while it is not, it is; its being 
cannot be without its non-being. While I speak, 
the present vanishes and becomes not-present; 
yet this not-present vanishes and becomes pres- 
ent. I must grasp Time as the ever-present yet 
the ever-fleeting, both in one; the persistent is 
momentary, and yet the momentary persists. The 
vanishing Now vanishes, and the eternal Now 
endures through the vanishing of evanishment. 
What a dialectical play of empty subtlety ! Yet 
this is just the fact, the very reality of empty 
Time, which the Ego must master and fill, or be 
danced on its vacuity like a shuttle-cock. 

So the Ego in Attention reaches the Time- 
idea, as it previously reached the Space-idea ; 
it stops the mere flow of successive sensations, 
and holds the sensuous object fast in the Now, 
out of which act the process of Time develops. 
Time is always moving, separating, going away 
from itself, yet always coming back to itself. 
The present is all of Time that there is; this 
moment lasts forever yet is forever leaving. 
The horse in the treadmill is always moving, 
yet always in the same place. 

The second stage of Attention has now com- 
pleted itself. The Ego has fully particular- 
ized the object of sense, having seized it not 
simply immediately, but also in its limits which 



PERCEPTION. 147 

are in Space and Time. This is the end at pres- 
ent ; we are ready to pass into the following 
stage. 

III. Attention concludes its process with the 
act of Ideation. The Ego unites the particular 
object with itself (the Ego) as particular, identi- 
fying the two sides. That is, the object is now 
made internal, ideal ; hence we call this final act 
Ideation, the sensuous object is ideated, and this 
its Ideation is also the reproduction of it as par- 
ticular in the external word. 

The Ego in Attention first particularizes itself; 
then it particularizes the object, having made it 
the same as itself; finally it joins with itself the 
object which it has already transformed into a 
likeness of itself through particularization. 

The student will note that this ideating act of 
Attention is the first form in which the ideality 
of mind begins distinctively to assert itself. 
The destiny of the whole external world is that 
it be transformed by the Ego and made ideal, 
first as a Percept, then as an Image, and finally 
as a Thought. 

The student will also note that this act of 
Ideation re-creates the object and projects it into 
the external world. We have already observed 
that the Ego negates the extended object, then 
reproduces it as extended. The Ego annuls the 
difference between itself and the object, ideating 
the latter; yet it preserves this difference as 



148 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

annulled, and hence must posit the object anew 
through itself in its act of Ideation. 

Let us designate a little more fully this third 
stage of Attention, in which the Ego completes 
its possession of the particular object of Sensa- 
tion. In the second stage just concluded, Atten- 
tion seized this object, separated it from the 
stream of Sensation, held it from the Void and 
the Vanishing, fixed it in the Here and Now, 
thus making it particular. In the first stage the 
Ego separated itself from the stream of Sensa- 
tion, concentrated itself within itself, and so 
began its own self-mastery. In these two stages, 
accordingly, we have the Ego getting possession 
of itself on the one hand, aud completely par- 
ticularizing the object on the other. In the 
present stage, which is the third, the Ego takes 
up the object as particular into itself, makes the 
same its own, re-creating it, for the object is not 
the Ego's own, till the latter can re-create it. 
That is, it unites the two previous stages: The 
object, which was so completely held apart from 
the Ego, is now adopted and identified with the 
same, yet also reproduced in order to be thus 
identified. 

Such is the completed act of Attention, which 
is the work of the conscious will. Attention is 
a grand rescuer both of Self and object; the 
former it elevates into self-control, the latter it 
saves from the great sea of Space and Time in 



PERCEPTION. 149 

their negative phases, which are the Void and 
the Vanishing. Both Ego and object would be 
lost in a nebulous, chaotic, fleeting Sense-world, 
were it not for Attention. The fixing of the 
object in the Here and Now saves it from an 
indefinite extension and an indefinite succession; 
the Ego having individualized itself in Attention, 
individualizes the object, and then makes the 
same its own, appropriating and reproducing. 

For this last stage we need a special term, we 
shall call it Ideation. The object is now ideated, 
has become internal with its own Space and 
Time, and is united with the Ego. It is no 
longer merely an external object in external 
Space and Time; it was particularized by the 
Ego, and distinguished from yet joined with 
extension and succession. Now the whole object 
with its spatial and temporal adjuncts has been 
identified with the Ego, transferred from the 
real to the ideal, and thence again realized in the 
world through the Ego. Attention, therefore, 
has gotten possession of the sensuous object by 
this final act of Ideation, which not only annuls 
the difference between subject and object, but 
annuls this annulment, and so posits the differ- 
ence anew with the object. 

In this work of ideating the particular object 
we can discern the process of the Ego, as it 
unifies the external with the internal. 

1. There is the immediate union in which the 



150 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

object as a limited sensuous whole is takeu up 
and ideated. For instance, I take up and ideate 
this ball as a total object of sense. Still this 
ball is itself composed of many particulars, and 
the Ego still further particularizes, this being 
now its character. 

2. There is what we may call the analytic 
union, in which the Ego divides up the particular 
object into many particulars, and then ideates 
each of these particulars singly. Thus every 
object calls forth a multiplicity of ideations. 

3. There is what we may call the synthetic 
union, in which the Ego returns out of this mul- 
tiplicity, and re-unites all the manifold ideations 
into one concrete synthesis. Thus we ideate 
again the total ball, not now immediately, but as 
mediated through many particulars, which form 
a new whole of Ideation. 

Again let us grasp in a brief record the three- 
fold activity of the Ego in Attention : first, the 
Ego collecting itself within itself, particularizes 
itself ; secondly, it particularizes the object ; 
thirdly, it takes up this object into itself, making 
the same its own, appropriating and reproduc- 
ing. If we wish distinct names for these three 
stages of Attention, we may call them respect- 
ively: the Self-concentration of the Ego, the 
particularization of the object through the Ego, 
the Ideation of the object with the Ego — in 



PERCEPTION. 151 

which triple movement we catch again the sweep 
of the Psychosis. 

Let us now look about us for a moment. 
Manifestly the outcome of Attention is that the 
single sensuous object is ideated, and the Ego 
possesses it for once. But will the Ego keep 
possession? Hardly; there must be a manifold 
Ideation which makes permanent. Wherewith 
we go over into the next stage, in order to see 
how the object, ideated a single time in Atten- 
tion can be ideated for all time in Retention. 

III. Retention. 

In the preceding stage of Attention we suc- 
ceeded in ideating the particular object, inter- 
nalizing it for once and uniting it with the Ego. 
But this is itself a particular act, and so falls 
into Time ; it is still exposed to the danger of 
the Vanishing, on account of its remaining 
element of externality. Not merely once but 
many times it must go through the process of 
internalization, ere it can be made a permanent 
possession, ere it be retained. 

Retention is the making permanent the act of 
Ideation, which, being a particular act, is limited, 
temporal, transitory. Just as we saw the par- 
ticular object of Sensation fixed in the Now and 
rescued from the Vanishing by Attention, so 
also this total act of Attention (which is the 



152 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ideation of the Object) must be fixed by the 
Ego and rescued from the Vanishing. This is 
the process of Retention which is itself the third 
stage in the total movement of Perception. 

We shall designate briefly the stages in the 
process of Retention, or the making permanent 
the act of Attention. 

I. There is always an Immediate Retention in 
every mind, yet different minds vary much in 
their retentive capacity. The Ideation must be 
retained for a while, though the act be quite 
involuntary and instinctive. The particular ob- 
ject is taken up and unified with the Ego ; such 
is a complete act of Attention, and yet it is but a 
single act, passing, transitory for most minds, 
unless the Ego picks up this passing single act of 
Attention and frees it from being just in the 
present moment only. 

II. This it does by repeating the ideating act, 
repeating the same through the power of volition. 
Thus the act is no longer single, but manifold ; no 
longer confined to one fleeting Now, but is made 
to persist through many Nows, according to the 
number of repetitions. I see an object, say, a 
picture ; I go to it often and make many idea- 
tions of it, until these many become ideally all ; 
that is* I can ideate the picture without its being 
present. I no longer need the external picture 
in order to see it, I can see it whenever I 
will to do so. I have removed it from the 



PERCEPTION'. 155 

outward Space and Time, to the internality of 
the Ego. 

This is accomplished by repetition ; I perform 
these repeated acts of Ideation through my will. 
The outer object is made inner so often that the 
whole process, object and all, becomes internal, 
and is united with the Ego. 

III. The inner process of Retention is now 
instinctive again, it works of itself, it does not 
require the external stimulus of the object. 
Not merely the single object is ideated, as in At- 
tention ; but the object with its total process is 
ideated, and identified with the Ego, which thus 
possesses the object and controls it at will. 
Voluntary repetition has stored up in the mind, 
we say, the external object of sense, and this 
process has become instinctive ; the Ego needs 
no longer to have the external object present and 
to internalize that by an act of will, but the 
ideated object and its whole process of Ideation 
are its immediate possession. The will puts 
forth its effort still, but not now in the form of 
repeating the external object; it controls the 
ideated object. 

The process of Retention has, therefore, its 
immediate, its repetitive, and its ideated stages. 
All these are seen to be manifestations of the 
Ego in its triple movement, which is the Psy- 
chosis or unifying energy in these distinctions. 

Moreover Retention is itself the third stage in 



154 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the larger movement of Perception, which is, in 
general, the receiving, the particularizing, and the 
identifying of the sensuous object with the Self. 
The whole moves from the Ego as determined by 
the external object in Impression, through the 
Ego separating itself from the external object 
and internalizing the same in Attention, to the 
Ego completely ideating the external object and 
uniting the same with itself. Thus the sweep 
is from the object determining the Ego without 
to the Ego determining the object within. 

Such is the psychical history of the acquiring 
of a percept by the Ego. The sensuous object is 
transformed from ruler to the ruled, and thus is 
itself saved from the Void and Vanishing of the 
external world, the negative elements of Space 
and Time, and is stored away in the eternally 
preserving ideality of the Ego, of which it is 
now a spiritual portion. 

At this point let us conceive that a new sen- 
sation comes out of the external world, and flows 
in upon the Ego through the inlets of the senses. 
In such a case Perception is again invoked to do 
its work, and to internalize the object as partic- 
ular. But the process is not the same as hither- 
to, there is an added element which is now 
introduced. The Ego has gained a content, 
possesses an acquired percept, and soon many 
acquired percepts, all of which co-operate with 
it in the new act of Perception, and give to it a 



PERCEPTION. 155 

new character. The Ego not only perceives but 
apperceives ; its content having coalesced with it, 
co-operates in the aforesaid new act of Perception. 
Accordingly the Ego now, with the aid of its 
content, not merely internalizes the object, but 
orders and correlates it, which process is called 
Apperception. 

General Observations on Perception 

1. The student will probably agree with the 
statement that the discussion on Space and Time 
is the most difficult part of the preceding account 
of Perception. This difficulty lies chiefly in 
the fact that they are the pre-suppositions of the 
sense-world, every sensuous object implies them, 
every act of Perception falls back upon them 
ultimately as its very condition and possibility. 
Thus Perception runs upon its limit in them ; 
we may say that Perception has to transcend 
Perception in order to perceive, it has to reach 
over to something which it does not perceive 
(at least, not directly) that it may act. It has 
to particularize Space and Time, which are thus 
pre-supposed by it as its primordial materials. 

There has been, however, no attempt in the 
foregoing account to show how Space and Time 
get to be, as objective existences. The design 
is simply to point out the way by which we 
come to them subjectively. Some philosophers 



156 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

have held that they are subjective forms only 
(see Kant's doctrine above alluded to); that we 
make them and impose them upon externalty 
through our own Ego. That we do so, is true; 
but that they are also real, is likewise true; in 
fact, both sides (subjective and objective) are 
counterparts and necessary. But this question is 
not strictly psychological, though the Ego cer- 
tainly pre-supposes the reality of Space, and 
recreates it in Perception along with the object 
perceived. No attempt, therefore, can here be 
made adequately to construe Space and Time, 
though we have already suggested (in the note 
on Space and Time) that they are posited along 
with all externalty by the creative act of the 
Divine Ego, and that our cognition of them is 
ultimately the recognition of that act. 

2. Time is the first and most external manifest- 
ation of the Dialectic, the inner principle of all 
movement, growth, development in nature, in life 
and in mind. This word we shall now introduce 
to the student, that he may begin to grow into its 
meaning, premising, meanwhile, that its full 
significance can be unfolded only at the end of 
Psychology, in the last stage of Thought. At 
present, however, as a preliminary exercise, let 
him reflect further upon Time, specially upon 
the Now as above set forth, how it is the most 
fleeting, evanescent, shadowy of all things, and 
in the same breath the most solid and persistent, 



PERCEPTION. 157 

in fact just that which endures. Let him note 
also the Ego whose movement takes up both 
these extremes and unifies them. Such is the 
first glimpse of the Dialectic, or the Play of the 
Negative, most subtle, sinuous, elusive, yet pre- 
cisely that which must be caught and held and 
cast into the fetters of speech by the thinker. 
This Play of the Negative, which undoes itself 
and turns over to its own opposite, which negates 
the negation and therein sweeps out of itself and 
becomes positive — this Play of the Negative is 
truly the most important matter in all philoso- 
phy, it is the driving-wheel of the Universe. 

Let not the faithful student, however, listen 
to those insidious voices which will whisper in 
his ear that all this is a gorgeous fabric of illu- 
sion, or an intricate network of insoluble prob- 
lems which the spirit makes for itself and then 
gets caught in its own toils, to its lasting injury 
or even destruction. Many minds are too indo- 
lent or too impatient to perform the task of 
Thought, and just for that reason feel themselves 
called upon to proclaim that it is merely a cun- 
ning web of sophistry spun by the Father of Lies 
to catch innocent souls, which web they are too 
shrewd to dally with. Such is a not uncommon 
prejudice against this dialectical Play of the 
Negative, as if it were the old Serpent himself, 
subtle, slippery, sinuous, ensconced in the Ego 
so slyly, and ever ready to fling his coils around 



158 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the unwary explorer. Still the Ego must assert 
itself as master over its own monsters, else it 
will indeed be caught, it is already caught when 
it flees — another case of this double-dealing 
Dialectic. 

3. A further instance we may ponder in the 
matter which we have just been considering — 
that of knowing the object. Often has it been 
stated already that the external world is in itself 
negative, is, so to speak, self-alienated, outside 
of itself, hence indefinitely projected in Space 
and Time. Just for this reason it is rightly 
called non-Ego. But in cognition the Ego ne- 
gates the non of the non-Ego, making the latter 
internal, which process is thus seen to be the 
negation of a negative. That is, the act of the 
Ego knowing the external sensuous object is the 
negation of a negation. Thus the Play of the 
Negative lies in the first act of knowledge ; by 
such means only (by negating its negative or 
non-Ego) can the Ego get to be concretely 
positive, and thereby know. 

Let the student still further unravel the 
following Play of the Negative, and mark its 
psychological significance. Ignorance (linguis- 
tically a negative) is primarily not to know that 
you do not know — unconscious or unknowing 
ignorance; the first negation of it is to know 
that you do not know — conscious or knowing 
ignorance ; the second negation of it is to know 



PEBCEPTION. 159 

that you know. The whole movement of knowl- 
edge is, from this point of view, a negation of a 
negation. 

Humor is essentially a vision of the dialectical 
nature of all things ; wit sees the negative, 
humor sees the negative too, but also its nega- 
tion. Some people have neither wit nor 
humor and cannot understand either ; others 
again have keen wit but no pervasive humor. 
The Play of the Negative sometimes embodies 
itself in the anecdote, and has to be seen through 
to get the point. A sailor was pulling a long 
rope up out of the sea; growing impatient of his 
task he exclaimed: "I believe somebody has 
been down there and cut off the end ! " 

4. We have often spoken of the reproduction 
of the object by the Ego, when the latter has 
taken up and internalized said object. In Sense- 
perception such reproduction means that the 
Ego reproduces its external form, its geometrical 
shape, its extended body. In Representation 
the Image will be reproduced, and in Thought 
the creative Idea of the object will be reproduced. 
Note, therefore, that the word reproduction will 
have necessarily three different senses in the 
three different stages of Intellect, passing from 
the outer material figure to the inner genetic 
thought of the object. 

Here also we may observe that the ideation of 
the object always involves its reproduction in the 



160 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYCEOSIS. 

world, its projection or objectification. For if 
the external object be truly made internal by the 
Ego, it cannot be lost as object, but must be pre- 
served and restored. That is, the Ego, in 
appropriating the object, cannot let it vanish in 
this act, otherwise the Ego would not get the 
object, there would be no appropriation but 
destruction. 

5. In Perception, as here considered, the Ego 
is without content; it is treated as the simple 
activity of the Self in getting a percept. But 
there are very few, if any, such cases of Percep- 
tion actually ; in psychology, however, we wish 
at the start to see the pure perceptive act of the 
Ego, and so we make the foregoing abstraction. 
The mind of the small child even has some kind 
of content which enters into the work of its Per- 
ception. Practically, therefore, and concretely 
taken, Perception is quite always Apperception. 



SECTION THIRD— APPERCEPTION. 

There are many terms which express or sug- 
gest the notion of Apperception. In general, it 
may be conceived as mental assimilation, where- 
by the food of the mind — percepts, feelings, 
experiences — is assimilated, is made over into 
the mental organism. Or, to take a term which 
we prefer (as it is not derived from a physio- 
logical process), Apperception integrates the 
percept, it is essentially an act of integration. 
This term, accordingly, we shall use as synony- 
mous with Apperception, especially when we 
wish to put stress upon the fact of the percept 
being made one with the Ego, both together con- 
stituting the active mental integer. The present 
sphere has also its place in the well-known doctrine 
of the Association of Ideas, which has played 
such an important part in English Psychology. 
11 (161) 



162 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The apperceptive act is not only the perceiv- 
ing, but also the ordering of the percept through 
the Ego and the content of the Ego already 
acquired. In Sensation the external object was 
received; in Perception it was separated from 
the mass of Sensation, particularized and ideated ; 
thus the Ego in Perception begins to have a dis- 
tinct content. In Apperception the Ego orders 
each newly acquired percept through itself and 
its own stores. 

We can see that the Ego is now quite different 
from what it was at the beginning of Perception. 
The fresh object of sense is taken up by this new 
Ego and incorporated with the same (or rather 
insouled therewith). Yet there was a previous 
percept or percepts, which we shall call its con- 
tent, ideated, one with it, and functioning with 
it. This content, now an ideal element of the 
Ego, enters into relation with the arriving per- 
cepts and assists in ordering them, which act is 
their Apperception (literally a perceiving in 
addition or something added to Perception). In 
what does this ordering consist? That is to be 
unfolded in the present section. 

The act of Apperception may be illustrated by 
the arrival of a new box of goods in one of the 
great stores of a city. The man in charge opens 
the box, looks at the article or articles, and com- 
mands where each piece is to go, on what floor, 
in what department, at what counter, possibly 



APPEBCEPTIOlSr. 163 

on what shelf. He must have the whole store 
and its parts in his head to be able to tell where 
the given article belongs ; his Ego with its con- 
tent of previous percepts orders the new percept. 
Imagine him without this previous knowledge 
and already ordered knowledge ; however great 
his Ego, or his genius, he would be helpless. 

In like manner the arrival of a new percept in 
the mind has to be ordered by the whole mind, 
which is the Ego and its content. The act of 
Apperception completes the movement of Sense- 
perception ; the object is not only ideated as a 
particular, but is put into its place in the total 
mental economy, which is indeed an inner world, 
that of Ego, taken from the outer world, made 
ideal, and organized. The particular object is 
united into an internal order, and no longer 
remains in an external succession or contiguity ; 
the cosmos is within. 

The Ego alone, without its store of Appercep- 
tion, is like a business man having no capital. 
With little he can get but little, with much he 
can get much, provided of course that he is able 
to handle his acquisitions aright. A good mer- 
chant must have not only general capacity, but 
his occupation must become ingrown with his 
Ego, so that he not only perceives a piece of 
merchandise, but apperceives it in all its rela- 
tions. Why are students of a certain grade 
required to pass an examination before entering 



164 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS 

upon a further course of study ? For the sake 
of Apperception ; if they have not sufficient 
knowledge to apperceive the new lesson, they 
must be sent where they can get it, or be put to 
doing something else. Nine-tenths of the com- 
plaints about the obscurity of certain great 
books proceed from insufficient Apperception on 
the part of the complainant. One of the clearest 
books in the world is said to be Newton's Prin- 
picia, yet it is certainly one of the darkest, 
unless you have sufficient stores already in your 
Ego to apperceive this work. Coleridge has 
declared somewhere that Kant's Critique of 
Pure Reason was to him one of the most trans- 
parent of books, and its style most luminous. 
Happy man, he had the divine gift of Kantian 
Apperception. Tremendous is the outpour 
of indignation against metaphysics and philoso- 
phy in these days, particularly is such to be 
found in books of psychology; indeed the 
psychologists of a certain school are fast ap- 
proaching the condition of monomaniacs on the 
subject of that awful man-eating goblin meta- 
physics. Yet one has not to read very far in 
order to find out that the trouble lies chiefly in 
their Apperception ; if they only possessed a 
sufficient Ego with sufficient stores to integrate 
and assimilate the metaphysical monster, the 
dyspeptic attack would be much alleviated, if 
not transformed into a state of positive health. 



APPERCEPTION. 165 

The Ego in Apperception has undergone a 
threefold change from what it was in simple 
Perception. In the first place, it has developed 
into its actual form out of its potential, it has 
furrowed its channels of activity in making its 
primal percept ; it works along its own lines 
already laid down; what it has done once, it 
more easily does again. In the second place, it 
has a content, which is united with it, is a part 
or rather element of it, since it too is object as 
well as subject, the content being the particular 
object of sense ideated. In the third place the 
total Ego, both in form and content, is united in 
a single activity, which takes up, ideates, and 
orders the object, making the same a constituent 
of its inner world. Thus there is a passing of the 
object from one world to another, from the outer 
sense-world in Space and Time to an inner mind- 
world in which the Ego is the connecting bond 
and the orderer. We have moved with the object 
from the real to the ideal realm. 

Apperception, whose general sweep shows the 
Ego ordering the percept, has three stages. 
These are all phases of the uniting of the per- 
cept with the Ego, as determined by the move- 
ment of the latter. In other words the Ego 
integrates the external object of sense with 
itself, making the same an element of itself. 

I. Simple Integration, in which the percept 
is united with the Ego immediately ; the Ego 



166 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

with its content orders directly what is brought 
to it. Here the procedure is on the whole, in- 
voluntary and instinctive. 

II. Selective Integration, in which the Ego 
separates itself from the total mass of the object 
or objects, and chooses- what it will take up. 
Here a volitional element enters. 

III. Redintegration of the act of Appercep- 
tion, which, being a single act and so subject to 
Time, must be integrated over and over again, 
till the presence of the sensuous object is no 
longer needed. 

Already we have noticed apperceptive phases, 
in Retention for instance ; henceforth Appercep- 
tion will continue through all Psychology. A 
similar process will take place when the object is 
an image or a thought as well as a sensuous object. 
But here at the end of Sense-perception is its 
true place in the science ; here it becomes ex- 
plicit and must be considered. In like manner 
(as already observed) we shall have Attention 
further on, and this is really founded upon the 
Will, which is not especially under consideration 
in the present work. All of which may serve to 
recall to us that the mind is a whole always, 
though it specializes itself in certain activities at 
given times; such activities are but waves on the 
surface of the sea, which is underneath them all 
and is their totality as well as their substance. 



APPERCEPTION. 167 

I. Simple Integration. 

We are now to pre-suppose that the Ego with 
its content is present, as the result of Percep- 
tion. If we look back at the movement of this 
content as already traced in the perceptive pro- 
cess, we find that it has, first of all, a spatial and 
temporal character ; the percept was ideated 
along with its Space and Time. Accordingly 
the new object, which is now taken up along 
with its Space and Time also, has in common 
with the original content the spatial and tem- 
poral elements. This is the first form of Inte- 
gration, external, mechanical. Then follows a 
deeper Integration which comes from analysis, 
and the object integrates with the content accord- 
ing to a common quality. Finally an Integra- 
tion takes place in which the total object is 
ordered by the totality of the Ego. 

Thus we have three stages of Simple Integra- 
tion, or that form of Apperception in which the 
external object is integrated by the Ego with itself 
immediately ; that is, this object comes from the 
outside and stimulates the Ego, which responds 
to the stimulus through its own necessity, with- 
out inner choice of its own. These stages may 
be designated as follows : — 

I. External Integration, that of the object in 
Space and Time. 



168 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

II. Qualitative Integration, that of the object 
through its properties. 

III. Total Integration, that of the object as a 
whole after analysis. 

Generally, in this sphere of Simple Integration, 
the object is the determiner, while the Ego is 
determined externally to order the object, with- 
out selective volition. Here too we may note, 
in passing, that this is the sphere of the so-called 
Laws of Association, which are supposed by a 
certain school of thinkers to determine the Ego 
in all its activity. Hence Association is usually 
coupled with the doctrine of Determinism. 
Undoubtedly in this sphere the external object 
stimulates the Ego, and the Apperception takes 
place immediately in response. But we shall 
also see a sphere of choice later in Selective 
Integration. At present, however, let us exam- 
ine more fully the three stages above mentioned. 

I. The first stage of the Integration of the 
sensuous object with the Ego is the external one, 
that through Space and Time, which are them- 
selves the very forms of externality. In this 
external Integration we may also notice the three- 
fold movement; the object is integrated with the 
Ego through Extension (Space), Succession 
(Time), and Simultaneity (their union). 

1. Taking the sensuous object which is now to 
be apperceived (integrated or associated), we 
observe first that it is in Space, and so must be 



APPERCEPTION. 169 

ordered spatially alongside of the content of the 
Ego, which content is also in the present case a 
sensuous object ideated. Thus the two ideated 
contents have their spatial relations taken up 
into the Ego together, and so are spatially in- 
tegrated. They are contiguous in a common 
ideal Space, which is their first and most external 
Integration, though this be in and through the 
Ego. Such is the basis of the so-called Associ- 
ation by Contiguity; things which have been in- 
tegrated (or apperceived ) in the same ideal Splice, 
belong together in the mind and will recall each 
other (see Memory, which is the reverse or dis- 
integration of the present process). 

I see to-day in an American home a picture of 
Raphael's, the original of which I saw abroad in 
a Roman gallery ; I bring the two places together 
with their objects, both are integrated and joined 
together by my Ego in an ideal Space, and not 
only the too wheres, but also the two whens are 
integrated — with which fact we pass to the next. 

2. The sensuous object which is to be apper- 
ceived is likewise in Time, and is taken up with 
the same in the act of Apperception, and is 
ordered temporally with the content of the Ego, 
which content in the present instance is a sensu- 
ous object ideated along with its own Time. 
The two contents are thus brought together in 
the Ego, and are integrated in a temporal rela- 
tion. They are contiguous in a common ideal 



170 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHO 818. 

Time, or they co-exist in a common ideal suc- 
cession; objects which have been thus integrated 
belong together, and will recall each other. 
The picture which I now see integrates tempor- 
ally with the picture I saw abroad ; I bring the 
two times of seeing into a common succession, or 
temporal contiguity in my Ego, though the two 
events may have been years apart. 

Thus the Ego, having a content which is in 
its own ideal Time, integrates temporally the 
sensuous object, which is also in Time, and which 
thereby becomes likewise the content of the 
Ego. These two contents are united in a com- 
mon element, namely in an ideal succession. 
Every thing is preceded and followed by other 
things, it exists in a succession which the Ego 
ideates with it and thus makes internal, ideal. 
With such a content the Ego integrates the 
sensuous object in its Time, which is also some- 
where in Space ; thus Time insists on having 
Space as its setting, and the two are united in 
the sensuous object. 

3. The spatial and temporal elements co-exist 
in the thing of sense ; they are likewise fused 
into unity and coalesce in the Ego in a great 
variety of ways. Where and when I saw the 
picture are blended together in the past ; where 
and when I see the picture are blended together 
in the present. The two Wheres (There and 
Here) are integrated by the Ego in an ideal 



APPERCEPTION. 171 

Space (spatial Integration); the two Whens 
(Then and Now) are also integrated by the Ego 
(temporal Integration) in an ideal Time; so 
much we have unfolded in the two previous 
paragraphs. But now comes the third Integra- 
tion, the unity of the two preceding, which we 
shall call Simultaneous Integration. The two- 
fold Where and When of the object present in- 
tegrates with the twofold Where and When of 
the object past, which is the content of the Ego ; 
thus both doubles co-exist in the Ego in an ideal 
Space and Time, or contiguously and in succes- 
sion, that is, simultaneously. Mark that this 
Simultaneity (Togetherness) is predicated of 
both Space and Time in coalescence. 

It is the divisive act of the Ego which sepa- 
rates the temporal from the spatial and makes 
them two distinct Integrations. Eeally, how- 
ever, the sensuous object must be integrated 
in Space and Time together, or simultane- 
ously. The concrete act of the Ego as well 
as the concrete object is spatio-temporal ; the 
act becomes the more abstract and one-sided, in 
proportion as we hold apart one or the other of 
the two elements. Still, in this movement of 
External Integration we discern the threefold 
movement of the Ego, and we make the Psy- 
chosis, which unites not only the single process 
within itself, but also integrates the same with 
the total process of Psychology. 



172 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The double Where and the double Wheu in 
this final step are integrated through and through 
mutually, straightwise and crosswise. The result 
is, that either Where not only recalls the other 
Where, but also the corresponding When. The 
place of the picture now seen brings up not 
only the former place of seeing it, but also the 
former time. In Memory we shall find that 
these four integrated elements (the two Wheres 
and the two Whens) stand in such relation that 
any one of them may recall any other one of the 
rest or all of the rest. 

In regard to Simultaneity, let the reader 
analyze his mental process in perusing or wit- 
nessing the drama of Julius Ccesar; the place 
of the action (Rome) integrates with the time 
of the action (first half-century B. C), and may 
still further integrate with the present time and 
place of reading it or seeing it acted. 

These three terms are often designated as 
Laws of the Association of Ideas — Contiguity 
in Space, Consecution in Time, and Simultaneity 
in Space and Time. But whether they are laws 
or not, they represent the various stages of the 
Integration of the external object with the Ego — 
the juxtaposition in extension and in succession. 

It is manifest that the temporal and the 
spatial contiguity is really one, though each is 
separated by an act of the Ego. But just as 
well each is united with the other by an act of 



A PPEU CEP TION. 173 

the Ego, whose process is both divisive and uni- 
tary. The primal Association is apperceptive, 
uniting the perceived object by its place and its 
time with the already acquired content of the 
Ego with its place and its time. Still further, 
the Ego integrates the two elements (place and 
time) of the two contents, which thus are doubly 
integrated in Simultaneity ; nay, the reader, if he 
wishes to push this business to its last refinement, 
may here trace a quadruple Integration. It is 
well to note, however, that the word simultane- 
ous means usually quite the same as co-tempor'a- 
neous, as for instance, we speak of two events 
occurring simultaneously. 

Still the Integration of the objects remains 
external, being in Space and Time, which are 
just the forms of externality. Each is outside of 
the other, though they be contiguous, spatially 
and temporally. Their relation in the Ego cor- 
responds to the mechanical relation in the outer 
world of matter. But the Ego in its separative 
character must take to pieces the object within, 
separating the same into its properties or quali- 
ties, and thus finding its inner constituent ele- 
ments, which will form the basis of a new kind 
of Integration. This activity of the Ego corre- 
sponds to the chemical process in the outside 
world of matter, with its separations and recom- 
binations. Accordingly we are next to take up 
Qualitative Integration. 



174 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

II. Into the sensuous object the Ego begins 
to put distinction — the distinction of qualities. 
These are internalized with the object and corre- 
lated with the content, which has also such dis- 
tinctions. I see a red coat, this quality of 
redness may unite the object with a mental hat 
which is red. These qualities again may be su- 
perficial or profound ; the tendency of the Ego is 
to deepen them till the essence of the object is 
reached, in contradistinction to mere appearance. 
In integrating the external object with the con- 
tent in this sphere, the Ego proceeds by Resem- 
blance, by Contrast, and by Combination. 

1. As is well known, Resemblance brings the 
sensuous object and the ideated one together. 
Two men have similar cloaks, or similar looks, or 
similar characters ; they integrate mentally in the 
observing Ego. Resemblance passes from the 
outer to inner ; the qualitative Resemblance may 
be merely that of color, or it may be that of the 
prof oundest thought. 

2. The difference of objects may mentally 
bring them together ; this is Integration by Con- 
trast. A giant will not only integrate with a 
giant, but a dwarf with a giant; the opposites 
determine each other and are connected. Here 
we see the movement of the Ego, which is not 
only identity but also difference ; it has not only 
Resemblance within itself but also Contrast or 
otherness; the Ego can integrate in both ways. 



APFER C ET TION. 1 7 5 

The psychologists have called Resemblance and 
Contrast Laws of Association; but how can 
they be regarded as Laws, since they are not a 
fixed principle of action, but can work exactly 
contrariwise? They must be finally referred for 
explanation to the process of the Ego, which is 
not only the law, but the law-maker. 

3. Out of Contrast we can develop the thought 
of Combination, which integrates two opposing 
elements. The giant is the opposite of the dwarf, 
and the dwarf is the opposite of the giant; 
they are thus alike in being contrasted. Under- 
neath Contrast, therefore, lies the movement of 
Combination, which is also the deeper fact of 
Resemblance. That is, Resemblance and Con- 
trast are one in the act of Combination, which is 
essentially the process of the Ego in its three 
stages. The object is taken up, divided, then 
united in the complete process of the Ego ; then 
it is integrated fully. The giant resembles a 
giant — first integration, that of identity; the 
giant contrasts with a dwarf — second integra- 
tion, that of difference; both giant and dwarf are 
united in their difference, are made one in the 
Ego, though specially contrasted. Both are 
men, and in mutual relation; thus they are com- 
bined in a process with each other. We do not 
naturally contrast a dwarf and the planet Jupiter 
for instance, as there is no underlying resem- 
blance, such as two men have. The beautiful, 



176 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

poetic Titania, queen of the Fairies, in love with 
the "rude mechanical," Bottom the weaver, 
with an ass's head on, forms a famous comic Con- 
trast, resting also on Kesemblance. Each is 
alike in loving the opposite in speech, character, 
and looks, and both are very human. Were 
they not so much alike in being so different, 
there would be no fun. 

Already we have come to a new stage when we 
have detected the Ego as the underlying factor of 
Integration. In Resemblance there was the com- 
parison of the two things, which was more or less 
external; in Contrast their diversity was intro- 
duced into the comparison ; but the two objects 
were found in a common process with each other in 
the act of Combination. This act was traced into 
the Ego — wherewith we pass to the next stage. 

III. We have now reached the sphere of total 
Integration (or Assimilation) which shows the 
object assimilated into the complete process of 
the Ego. The sensuous thing is taken up, 
ideated as a particular, and then ordered in- 
stinctively, or assimilated into the structure of 
the Ego. It is an Assimilation analogous to the 
taking of food into the bodily organism; the 
food is transformed into the various corporeal 
constituents by the vital process. At present 
the process of the Ego is taking up the external 
world and transmuting the same into the mental 
organism. 



APPEBCEPTION. 177 

In this Assimilation the total process of the 
Ego has become the apperceiving principle ex- 
plicitly, and so integrates the object. Yet here 
too we must note the stages. First is the im- 
mediate or formal Assimilation which belongs to 
the Ego as such; second is the grand diversity 
of Egos in the process of Assimilation ; third is 
the unity of all Egos just in their diversity of 
Assimilation. 

1. At the start we may simply notice, what 
has already been set forth, the fact that every 
Ego has its process of Assimilation, in order to 
be itself, and it must move through the same in 
appropriating externality. The Integration of 
the object with the Ego is direct, primordial, 
constituting the very nature of the Ego, without 
which it could not be at all. This is only saying 
that the Ego, to be Ego, must assimilate the 
outer world into its own process. 

Unquestionably the Ego assimilates many sep- 
arate percepts in quite every object which it 
takes up. I see a ball, it has color, shape, 
smoothness, hardness, size, odor, each of which 
is given as a distinct sensation, yet all are uni- 
fied, assimilated, and finally named as one thing 
by the Ego ; they constitute the one object called 
a ball. It is manifest that therein many small 
integrations are completely and inseparably as- 
similated by the Ego, so that the distinctions 
vanish, or are only recovered by a special act 

13 



178 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of the Ego. The ball, however, becomes inte- 
grated as a total by the Ego, and is separated 
from the same in Memory as a total, quite in- 
complex,, or at least not consciously complex. 

Here we can place in the main the doctrine 
of Inseparable Association, enforced so strongly 
by the elder Mill and defended so warmly by 
his son. But the Associationists seem to hold 
that the matter gets itself done without the Ego, 
by the fiat of a Law of Association, which comes 
from the outside and imposes its decree upon 
the free-acting Ego. To the teeth of which 
statement we must again affirm: the Ego is not 
only the Law but the Law-maker, yea, the 
Law-unmaker, when the fullness of time hath 
come. 

2. Now enters the fact of the prodigious dif- 
ference in the Egos of different people, which 
comes chiefly from a difference of content. The 
simple process of the Ego in the savage and in 
the civilized man is the same; but how diverse is 
the content of his mind through its acquired 
stores ! These again re-act upon the process of 
the Ego and make it seem very different; still 
both men have fundamentally the one common 
process of the Ego, else they would not be men, 
endowed with personality. 

Take, for instance, this flower; the rustic in- 
tegrates it as an object having a certain form 
and color; the botanist integrates it with the 



APPERCEPTION. 179 

whole vegetable kingdom, orders it at a glance 
under species, genus, family, etc. ; all these are 
the content of his Ego. The philosopher ought 
to make a deeper integration still, co-ordinating 
the flower not only with the vegetable world but 
with the animal, with conscious existence, with all 
creation. The different contents of the Ego make 
the difference in the Apperception of the object. 
In apperceiving a great complex fact, such as the 
World's Fair, one man will make the primary Ap- 
perception and hardly do more than order the 
objects in Space and Time, where and when he 
saw them ; another man will go deeper and order 
them according to their qualities, superficial and 
profound; still a third man will seek to order the 
World's Fair as a totality made by the Ego, and 
hence to be grasped as a process thereof, as h 
Psychosis. Thus light shines through all com- 
plexity, when the order of the object is seen to 
be born of the inherent process of the Ego. 

To come to the matter just at present in hand, 
the facts of Psychology may be put together as 
merely external, indeed as so many spatial 
objects strung capriciously along in a string of 
observations and experiments ; or they may be 
integrated according to some qualities external or 
internal, which, however, remains at best but an 
ordering from without. Finally all the facts and 
divisions of Psychology may be integrated by 
the Psychosis, in which the whole Ego makes 



180 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

whole (integrates) the Ego in every special 
activity, ramification, or subtlety. 

3. With all this difference in the various Egos 
manifested in assimilating the object, we return 
to the fact that they are one, and that their com- 
mon function in Assimilation is to overcome the 
difference of the object, to make the same ideal 
and thus to preserve it. The result of the pro- 
cess of Assimilation is to grasp the Ego as the 
subjecting of the external difference and the in- 
ternalizing of this difference, so that henceforth 
it is a factor of the Ego itself. 

That is, the Ego does not now let the object 
put its distinctions upon the Ego, and so deter- 
mine its activity from without, which has been 
the case throughout the present stage of Simple 
or Associative Integration, but the Ego has 
become aware of itself as the orderer and the 
master ; from this awareness it proceeds to action, 
and next it will in turn impose its distinctions on 
the object. Herewith we pass to a new stage of 
Apperception. 

Taking a retrospect of the threefold move- 
ment of Simple Integration, we should specially 
note that it manifests the Psychosis. The first 
or immediate stage is the external (spatio-tem- 
poral) Integration, which leaves the objects as 
they are, taking them up in their extension and 
succession immediately. The second or divisive 
stage is the one in which the objects are sepa- 



APPEE CE P TION. 181 

rated into qualities, and are integrated through 
these with the Ego and its content. The third 
stage restores the unity of the object after qual- 
itative separation, and the total Ego integrates 
the object as total, undivided, or with division 
overcome — inseparable Integration. 

But when the Ego totifies the object thus 
separated into many qualities, and then inte- 
grates the same, it (the Ego) is already im- 
plicitly controlling the object according to its 
own principle, which cancels the qualitative 
separation into unity. This implicit control is 
now to become explicit, the Ego passes from the 
determined to the determinm^, wherewith a new 
separation will appear. 

II. Selective Integration. 

The Ego in its apperceptive movement is now 
to choose the object which is to be integrated 
with itself. The object is, accordingly, separated 
and selected; moreover the Ego, in order to 
make such selection, has to bring about a separa- 
tion within itself, which is involved in taking 
one thing and rejecting another. 

There is now an act of Disintegration preced- 
ing the act of Integration, or of Dissociation 
going before Association. The Ego brings a 
new separation into the object, which is not the 
qualitative separation such as we observed in 



182 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the previous stage, but one imposed by the Ego 
upon the object for its own subjective behoof. 

The object is not now co-ordinated by any 
sensuous or external element, but by some mental 
element, belonging to the Ego itself. Accord- 
ingly we shall behold the Ego take certain factors 
of the object and integrate them with itself, 
while it rejects others. 

The question rises, why does the Ego thus 
select some portions of the object and leave the 
rest? Why lean to certain things and spurn the 
others? In a general way the answer can be given, 
because it is interested in them ; the Ego and its 
content are already ideally related to them, or 
have at least a secret tendency in that direction. 
Thus the Ego divides the object, since it is di- 
vided within itself, choosing and refusing. Note, 
therefore, how this second stage, here named 
Selective Integration, is the stage of separa- 
tion; in an act of choice the Ego separates itself 
from all its many other relations, and throws 
itself upon the particular thing, which is 
also separated from everything else for the 
moment. 

Let us grasp the sweep of what has just been 
called Selective Integration, which, as distin- 
guished from the preceding stage of Simple In- 
tegration, is subjective, voluntary, determined 
from within, proceeding outward to the object. 
The Ego now manifests will in selecting, in- 



APPEBCEPTION. 183 

fluenced primarily by some internal tendency, 
motive, purpose. The following are the stages 
of its movement. 

I. The Ego will choose the object and integrate 
the same with itself according to some native 
bent ; it takes spontaneously what it wants, what 
it feels an affinity for, what it is interested in. 
Selective Integration through interest. 

II. The Ego will choose the object and inte- 
grate the same with itself according to some end 
of its own, which gives to said object a value. 
This end is, however, at first finite, that is, a 
means for some further end, and hence, can 
give only a finite value to the object. Selective 
Integration through finite value. 

III. The Ego will choose the object and inte- 
grate the same with itself according to its own 
supreme end, which is to unfold the Self to com- 
pleteness. Selective Integration through infinite 
value. 

It is now time for the student to ask himself : 
What is the Psychosis of this trinity just an- 
nounced? Doubtless he has already asked many 
such questions in the course of the preceding 
movement. At present, let him think it out for 
himself, and then read the following develop- 
ment which may give him some help. The pur- 
pose of psychology is to impart to the student 
the power of creative thought, so that he can 
make his own psychical process, and feel its truth, 



184 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

its inner necessity, which always lies in the 
Psychosis. 

I. The Ego is interested in one object rather 
than another, it separates or disintegrates in 
order to find its affinity and to come into unity 
with its own. A natural interest exists, the 
result of innate disposition and acquired tend- 
ency. Every human being has a certain number 
of likes, talents, aptitudes, all of which go forth 
with the Ego to the object, as it were in search 
of their real counterpart. This natural selection 
of the object by the Ego is sometimes called 
taste; one man has a taste for fish or for flesh, 
another for mechanics or for poetry. Often an 
acquired element plays into such a tendency, 
which, however, is based upon a natural bent. 

Native talent has its place in education as well 
as in society. At a certain point the student 
must begin to specialize in his training, he must 
get himself ready to do a certain thing in the 
social order, to have a vocation. It sometimes 
happens that what he can do best, what he has a 
natural capacity for, is just what he has no desire 
for. Talent does not coincide with wish or ambi- 
tion. Thus the interest in doing or being some- 
thing is dissevered from the ability. 

The result is, that interest has to be controlled 
and reconstructed by reason, and adjusted to the 
situation. 

At present, however, we are trying to trace the 



APPERCEPTION. 185 

movement of the Ego in its tendency to affiliate 
with some things and not with others. It inte- 
grates with this object specially, following its 
bent, as we often say, or through interest. 

1. There is, in the first place, the interest 
which comes through familiarity. The object in 
some phase has been seen or known before, and 
at once it attracts the Ego. In a strange city a 
familiar face becomes a matter of deep interest ; 
the mind, overwhelmed with new things is 
delighted to run for a while in an old channel. 
Particularly a familiar tongue heard in a foreign 
land draws irresistibly the whole Ego, which iden- 
tifies its present with its former Self, or inte- 
grates the fresh object with its ideated content 
instinctively and through a feeling of pleasure. 
Interest indicates the spontaneous uniting of the 
two sides ; the interest of familiarity is the 
recognizing of the thing as belonging to the 
family, the ideal family of father Ego, who so 
gladly receives the unexpected member. 

2. There is, in the second place, the interest 
which comes through novelty. The Ego finds 
familiarity a limit, and at once sets about trans- 
cending it ; things trite and familiar it now casts 
away. What is the ground of this contradiction? 
It is to be seen in the nature of the Ego itself, 
which must be, of necessity, its own opposite ; it 
will not harden in the grooves of familiarity, but 
must break over them and assert its freedom, its 



186 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

infinite character. Hence the Ego is interested 
in the novelty of the thing as well as in its famil- 
iarity, and it loses interest in novelty as well as 
in familiarity. In the latter the Ego shows its 
principle of identity, the object must be identified 
or ideated with Self and its content. But in nov- 
elty the Ego shows its principle of difference, 
since the object must be different from Self and 
its content. The novel thing excites interest, if 
it be among familiar things ; yet the novel thing 
among novelties only, gets to be familiar and 
stale, it strikes over into the opposite; for if all 
is novel, then the novel is just what is familiar. 
3. In the preceding interaction between famil- 
iarity and novelty the reader has probably 
detected already the third principle, which is the 
movement uniting both sides. Already it was 
the familiar thing among many novel things, the 
familiar face among many strange faces, which 
caused the interest. In like manner, it was the 
new thing among many familiar things, which 
caused the sudden integration. That is, both 
familiarity and novelty go together, are sides of 
one process which is fundamentally that of the 
Ego. The interest in the new is determined 
through the old, and the interest in the old is 
determined through the new. The familiar thing 
amid familiar things, and the new thing amid 
new things excite less interest, as there is no 
complete process of the Ego, which does not 



APPERCEPTIOy. 187 

pass from sameness to sameness but from same- 
ness to difference, and back again, when it fully 
and freely utters itself. That is, the final inter- 
est of the Ego lies not in any separate part or 
separate activity of itself, but in its own complete 
self-activity, in the Psychosis. 

II. The Ego has an end or use to which it 
wishes to put the object; thereby it gives value 
to the object in proportion to the latter's ser- 
viceableness for some purpose of its own. Thus 
the Ego acquires a new kind of interest in the 
object, which is now useful, not simply interest- 
ing ; that is, it subserves some end, which may 
be graded in different ways. 

The integration of the object with the Ego 
through interest was more the result of native 
likes and dislikes, or, at least, of instinctive 
tendencies. The mind is interested in that for 
which it naturally has some affinity, and makes 
its selections quite unconsciously. But when the 
Ego puts value into some object and selects the 
same on that ground, it has an end in view to 
which the value corresponds. Thus the Ego has 
divided itself and has an end distinct from itself, 
and also it has divided the object, which has a 
value by virtue of the end. It is plain that the 
Ego separates consciously such an end from 
itself, though still its own, and integrates the 
object with the same, and thus gives to the 
object value. 



188 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Everything in the world may have value, if it 
can be made useful for any purpose of the Ego. 
Everything becomes valuable in proportion as 
the Ego can integrate the same with its end. 
But this is also of many grades, and hence there 
will be a grand difference in values. 

1. The immediate value is felt when the sen- 
suous object subserves some purpose of the phy- 
sical organism. A cup of water has value in 
slaking thirst ; a loaf of bread is not only of 
interest, but of value to the hungry man, and he 
is willing to exchange for it something of equal 
value. Upon the integration which has to take 
place between subjective ends in the shape of 
desires, needs and greeds, and objective values in 
the shape of food, raiment, and shelter is built 
the mighty structure of the commercial world. 

2. The Ego has within it a vast realm of what 
we may call finite ends, those of fame, power, love, 
wealth, of which every means has value to him. 
The given thing is a means to a certain end , yet this 
end is itself but a means to another end, and so on 
ad infinitum. Every individual is a little world 
(microcosm) full of plans, schemes, ends, which 
he is seeking to realize ; society is a huge col- 
lection of such striving atoms; no wonder that 
they collide. Still it is just these ends of an 
enormous number of Egos, which render all 
things and indeed all persons valuable ; nothing 
is without some value, evervthing is at least 



APPERCEPTION. 189 

destined to have some value. In the Walpurgis- 
Night (see Goethe's Faust, Part First) such a 
social order has been portrayed by the poet. 
One person has his particular end, great or small, 
and pursues it with the means at his command, 
but another person is seeking the same means 
for his particular end ; to both persons the means, 
which is some object, let us say, has value; 
both, therefore, fall into struggle and competi- 
tion for its possession. Thus arises a vast 
society of Egos, first giving value to the object 
and then competing for it with one another, for 
every person having some end and requiring 
some object as a means for its attainment, pro- 
duces value, which, however, may conflict with 
the valuation put by some other person upon the 
same object. 

In like manner we may consider spiritual 
things. The character of a man has a univer- 
sal value, rising from the estimate put upon him 
by his community, his nation, or the world. 
His fellow Egos place their valuation upon him, 
higher and lower; his life is a totality of think- 
ing and doing, higher and lower; finally the 
universal Ego, or Public Opinion, strikes the 
balance, and he receives his measure of univer- 
sal value in fame, be it good or ill. 

Thus a universal value hovers over and unites 
all things, and all particular Egos with their 
special valuations of persons and things. All 



190 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

has value or ought to have, belongs somewhere 
in this vast integration of the world with the 
Ego, which must employ the same for its end. 
But even this universal value has still a finite 
end ; the price or universal value of an article of 
merchandise is, say, one dollar, which the seller 
receives and the buyer pays, and then uses for 
his own purpose. Note, however, that the Ego 
previously set the value on the object, but 
now it finds the object already valued, which 
value it has to accept before using the object ; 
that is, value is raised out of the caprice of the 
individual Ego, and mediated with all Egos. 

3. Upon such a world of struggle and dissi- 
dence, with all its diversity of values, thus rises 
the idea of a universal value, by which every 
object is integrated with an Ego. There 
are many Egos competing for every object, but 
there are many objects competing for every Ego ; 
the result is that between the totality of objects 
and the totality of Egos a ratio is formed, which 
expresses the universal value of the object in 
relation to the sum total of Egos. What makes 
the value of a bushel of wheat to-day? Supply 
and demand, it is said ; supply of the object and 
demand of the totality of Egos ; if the supply is 
short, the value rises through the competition of 
the Ego for the thing. Yet other articles of 
food begin to compete with wheat as an article 
of food, and so keep down its value. Thus 



APPEBGEPTION. 191 

wheat has a universal value, which may fluctuate 
from day to day, but which always expresses 
the equilibrium between the totality of Egos 
competing for the object and thereby raising its 
value, and the totality of objects competing for 
the Ego and thereby lowering its value. The 
money expression of the universal value of an 
object is called its price. 

The universal value is Dot the infinite value; 
this distinction we must try to make plain to 
ourselves. The sum total of Egos proclaims a 
certain thing to be useful, and so gives to it a 
universal value. Still such utility is finite, not 
absolute ; the thing is useful for some end which 
in its turn proves to be only a means. For 
instance, the value of sound advice in economical 
matters, for making money, is useful to all men, 
and hence is a universal value; Poor Richard's 
maxims are universally valuable. Still the 
making of money is a finite end, money is not an 
end in itself but is for something else outside of 
itself. But when the Ego has itself as end, that 
is, its own Selfhood, its Personality as such, it 
has that as end which is the maker of all finite 
ends, it is Self-end. Herewith we rise into a 
new sphere which is next to be unfolded. 

III. We have reached the infinite value of the 
object, which can be created only by an infinite 
end. The Ego, as the self-active principle, has 
now an infinite end, namely to unfold itself as 



192 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

self-activity or self-determination. The object 
which conduces to such an end has an infinite 
value for the Ego, which therein brings forth 
itself. 

Finite ends we have already observed; there is 
a series of means and ends falling outside of one 
another without any self-return ; for instance, 
my end is to build a house, but the house is not 
an end merely but a means for shelter; this 
shelter again is not an end simply but a means 
for health and comfort, which again may point to 
another end. Even the universal value, which is 
illustrated by the price of an article, is only the 
value fixed for finite ends. But the infinite value 
expresses the worth of the object not for some 
finite end of the Ego, but for self-end. 

With this statement, the idea of educational 
values enters our field. What branches are best 
adapted to realize the Ego, to unfold it into itself 
as self-active, self-determining? Such is, in gen- 
eral, the primary problem of pedagogics, includ- 
ing all education and culture. The organization 
of studies is probably the greatest spiritual need 
of our time or of any time. The Ego moves 
through three stages in organizing its instru- 
mentalities for making the object a means to 
unfold the Person into its completeness. 

1 . Those studies are first which develop the Ego 
into the mastery of the implements of culture, 
along with a development into a free, full self- 



APPEBCEPTWN. 193 

activity. The Ego gets possession of itself and 
the intellectual weapons of its race. This is the 
sphere of the School and of its training from the 
Primary Grade to the University. 

2. This universal training in what is universal, 
must specialize itself in the training for a voca- 
tion, whereby the Person is to fill his place as a 
member of society, perform his function in the 
social Whole — The Technical School. 

3. The return to a universal training through 
Literature, History, Art, Philosophy. The in- 
dividual engaged in the special work of life must 
be a universal being also, a cosmopolitan, a 
world-man, though at home in his own circle. 
The instrumentality for such a training may be 
called the new University, which is just at pres- 
ent in the process of being evolved. The Study 
Class, the Literary Club, the Reading Circle, the 
Lecture Course are the faint beginnings of this 
new University, which is to be truly universal, 
located in every village, embracing not only the 
young, but the middle-aged and even the old, 
not only the professional student, but the man 
and woman in active life. Thus the individual, 
though engaged in his narrow special activity, is 
to be elevated into participating in the grand 
universal movement of his race. Only through 
continuous effort is such an existence possible, 
the battle must be fought and won every day. 

The Ego has now put an infinite value into the 

13 



194 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

object, making the same into a means for realiz- 
ing itself not merely as an individual, but as a 
race-man, as a member of total humanity. There- 
with the object has attained its absolute worth, 
being employed to develop such a personality. 

The movement of the Ego which was called 
Selective Integration has now run its course, 
passing through the stages which we have desig- 
nated as Interest, Finite Value and Infinite Value. 
The Ego, from integrating the object with itself 
through some native tendency or through some 
intermediate end, has risen to the point of abso- 
lute Self-end, in which the Ego employs the 
object for the complete development of itself as 
Person. Thus the Ego has grasped its own un- 
folding into perfect selfhood as the infinite end 
which gives an infinite value to the object or 
means. We say the infinite end, since the Ego 
has returned from all external ends into itself as 
end, and so is not limited by anything outside of 
itself. We say infinite value, since the object 
cannot now be measured by any finite standard, 
and since its value springs from being means to 
an end which is infinite, namely the Ego as self- 
determining. 

The object as means has, accordingly, reached 
its supreme integration with the Ego. But such 
an integration may be single, and hence may fall 
into Time and vanish. Hence it must be redin- 
tegrated. 



APPEBCEPTION. 195 

(On the subject educational values, see the 
Report on the Correlation of Studies by Dr. W. 
T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Edu- 
cation. This report, the masterpiece of its 
author, is the greatest educational document that 
America has produced, and ranks very high in 
the world's literature of education. More pro- 
foundly than any pedagogical writer hitherto, 
this author grounds the elementary branches of 
the Common School upon their infinite value in 
unfolding the pupil, without neglecting their 
finite value in the utilities of human life. ) 

III. Redintegration. 

Just as we found that it was necessary to have 
Retention following upon Attention in order to 
make permanent the work of Perception, so we 
find that it is necessary to have Redintegration 
following upon Integration, in order to make 
permanent the work of Apperception. Indeed this 
stage might be called Retentive Apperception. 
The Ego not only integrates the object with 
itself and content, but redintegrates the same; 
that is, integrates it over and over again, till it 
is fully internalized and ideally ordered. The 
apperceptive act must be repeated till the pres- 
ence of the object is not necessary for the act, 
which takes place, after such repetition, purely 
through the Ego. Hence Redintegration makes 



196 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

permanent the process of Integration, removing 
it from the external moment of Time, and fixing 
it in its own ideal Time in the Ego. Kepetition 
of the external object through the Ego at last 
leaves it no longer external, but reduces it simply 
to an element of the process, which becomes 
thereby wholly internal. 

Three stages of the movement of Redinte- 
gration we shall designate — Recurrence, Repe- 
tition, Habit. They constitute the Psychosis of 
Redintegration, showing the triple process of the 
Ego. 

I. Recurrence is the immediate, involuntary 
repetition of the apperceptive act, usually caused 
by the presence of the object. I am reading in 
a book and I find a strange word, strange to me 
at least, let it be just this word integratioiri ; I inte- 
grate it as a sensuous object, and then read on, when 
I meet it again, and spontaneously redintegrate 
it ; so I continue doing, till it becomes my intel- 
lectual property and 1 can use it myself. The word 
merely recurred, and I immediately responded 
with my integration. Thus we are always spon- 
taneously integrating, whereof again we can 
detect the inner movement, which is that of the 
object perceived, as we have already observed 
under Perception. 

1. Impression: the object appeals to the Ego, 
impresses it, and it responds. Thus the Ego is 
at first determined from without to make the act 



APPEBCEPTION. 197 

of Integration, and the Recurrence impels the Ego 
to attend the object. 

2. Attention: the Ego now voluntarily directs 
itself to the recurring object, which, however, 
still recurs by chance, is not made to recur by 
an act of will, though, when it does recur, the 
Ego pays Attention to it, which demands a 
volitional effort. 

3. Retention: the object having recurred, the 
Ego not only attends to it, but repeats the act of 
Attention, and thus ideates the recurring object. 
The next step is that the Ego make the object 
recur through an act of will ; but this is no longer 
Recurrence, which is external and involuntary. 
Herewith we have moved forward to a new stage, 
that of Repetition. 

It is one of the most important elements of 
the training of the Ego to make it seize the 
advantage of every chance Recurrence, which is 
coming to it incessantly. This is truly the 
sphere of Opportunity, which the man' must be 
ready for at all times, ready to integrate the 
recurrent facts and events of the world, which 
occur and recur every day. To be sure, that 
which simply occurs once externally he must 
make recur internally, but this brings us again to 
Repetition. The World's Fair, for instance, was 
one occurrence, but we have the power of making 
it often recur. 

II. Repetition is a voluntary act of the Ego, 



198 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

integrating over and over again the object ; we 
might call the whole process by the name of 
Intentional Redintegration. Now the activity 
proceeds from the Ego, from within, and not 
from without, as in Recurrence; the Ego deter- 
mines itself to Repetition, which is a separative 
act, since Volition is primarily a going forth 
of the Ego out of itself, while Repetition is 
made up of distinct acts, and hence is preceded 
by separation. Still the movement is to over- 
come just the separation of the object and to 
integrate it with the Ego. 

The importance of Repetition in education may 
just be noticed in passing. It is, indeed, the 
formal act of learning, the child has to repeat 
and review his lesson till it be thoroughly inte- 
grated. How many thousands of Repetitious are 
necessary in learning to read, beginning with the 
letters of the alphabet ! Repetition is the mind 
kneading the mind, which has to be wrought over 
many times, till it become pliable, form-taking, 
responsive to the object. Repetiiio mater studi- 
orum is an old educational maxim, much enforced 
by the Jesuits. 

The Ego repeats the object which it has 
selected, and turns away from what it has 
rejected. In Repetition there is a selection of 
the thing repeated; this selection, being the act 
of the Ego, will manifest three phases. 

1. Interest: the mind primarily takes up 



APPERCEPTION. 199 

what interests it, chooses that, integrates it, and 
repeats the integration. Man wishes to see 
again what he likes. Already we have discussed 
Interest under Selective Integration; here the 
fact is that the Ego will of itself repeat and 
completely integrate that in which it is interested. 
The use of this psychological fact has an impor- 
tant place in the School; the teacher is to 
bring about, as far as is reasonable, this spon- 
taneous movement to Repetition of the lesson on 
the part of the student. 

2. Value: the Ego will take up what has value 
for it and for its legitimate purposes, and in- 
tegrate the same. We have to learn our pro- 
fession, in order to earn our bread; the finite 
ends of life have their value, though this too be 
intermediate and finite. The object which is 
useful to us we integrate and redintegrate in 
order to make the same our own. Usefulness or 
the finite value of the thing learned, is the 
second stage of integrating instruction. 

3. Infinite value: the destiny of the Ego is to 
unfold itself into perfect selfhood, to become 
actually what it is potentially. Such is its infin- 
ite end, in which it is truly free, that is, self- 
limiting and self-legislating; the thing which 
conduces to this end has infinite value, and 
ought to obtain the completest integration. 
Education and its instrumentalities have this 
infinite value for the Ego. So important are 



200 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

these instrumentalities that they must be selected 
in advance for the child, whose sole vocation in 
his early years is to redintegrate them in the 
school, whereby he develops into possession of 
himself as well as into the culture of his race. 

It will be noticed -that these three stages of 
Kepetition, whereby the object is redintegrated, 
bear the same names as those of Selective Inte- 
gration.. We observe, in fact, the same general 
process of the object, yet with a special differ- 
ence ; there the Ego selects and integrates the 
object simply, here the Ego selects and redinte- 
grates the object, till the latter becomes an ideal 
element of the Ego. There the object was taken 
up in the process and ideated; here the object 
and the process are taken up and ideated together, 
so that the Ego is in possession of both, and no 
longer needs the presence of the external object. 

III. Habit is the unified result of a number of 
repetitions both of the object and of a series of 
objects ; each is redintegrated by separate acts of 
volition, till the whole series becomes united 
with the Ego as one object, and requires but one 
effort of will for starting. Take the well-known 
instance of learning to play on a musical instru- 
ment; to strike each key of the piano demands 
at first a distinct act of volition, till the move- 
ment of the fingers becomes a habit, when the 
player no longer attends to his hand, but looks at 
the notes before him, or glances off into vacuity. 



APPEBCEPTION. 201 

The process, once under way, goes of itself, 
that is, unconsciously, to the end. 

Thus the Ego has taken up into itself the sep- 
arate repetitions and has unified them into Habit, 
which means that the Ego possesses the whole 
series or cycle as a unit. Habit is said to be 
automatic, it requires but a single stimulus or a 
single volition at the beginning, after which it 
runs like a machine moved from the outside. 
We will to take a walk, without further conscious 
volition the legs move and complete the long suc- 
cession of movements. Eepetition through Rep- 
etition does away with Repetition, becoming the 
latent factor in Habit. 

The Ego will have its process in Habit, inte- 
grating the series with itself spontaneously, then 
separating the same from itself, and at last form- 
ing the new Habit. 

1. The Ego loves Habit, it naturally forms 
Habits as an element of its inmost Self. I ac- 
quire the Habit of Industry or Economy ; or the 
opposite Habits, those of Idleness or Wasteful- 
ness; good or bad, they are Habits which the 
Ego has by its very nature to generate. That is, 
the many separate Integrations must become 
one complete Redintegration, which, though the 
creation of the Ego itself, dominates it, rules it 
with a rod of iron. Wherewith we begin to see 
the necessity of a new stage. 

2. The Ego becomes the slave of Habit, and 



202 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

seeks to shake off its slavery. Thus a separation 
takes place ; the Ego withdraws itself from Habit, 
or from some given Habit, regarding the same 
as external, as outside of itself. And indeed, 
Habit does get to be mechanical, a kind of ma- 
chine which, once set a-going, seems to run with- 
out the help of or even against the wishes 
of the Ego. Especially is this the case 
with physical Habits; eating, drinking, smok- 
ing all engender enslaving Habits which 
the Ego resists, or may resist. So the Ego 
hates Habit, fights it, and is not always victori- 
ous. Such opposition does not necessarily arise 
against the so-called bad Habit merely ; the Ego 
begins to dislike any Habit when this gets to be 
mechanical, external, no longer an inherent part 
of itself. For thus the Ego finds itself cramped, 
thrust into limits, whereas it is by nature limit- 
transcending. Often the Habit which was once 
pleasurable — notably the Habit of teaching — 
becomes burdensome through much repetition, 
because it has dropped from self-active spon- 
taneity on the part of the instructor to the grind 
of a machine. The teacher must be eternally 
alive with the Psychosis, else Habit will become 
his mill. 

3. The Ego, having fallen out with the old 
Habit, separates itself from the same, and retires 
into its inner Self. But just this separation and 
self-return is the new Habit being formed; for 



APPERCEPTION. 203 

the Ego must form a Habit even against Habit. 
Thus the Ego goes back to its first stage and 
becomes spontaneous again, yet after having 
passed through the different, the opposite, here 
the mechanical ; from the Habit breaker it rises 
to being the Habit maker, which is just its pro- 
cess and completion in this third stage. Thus it 
has reached beyond its limit, and found freedom, 
not simply by destroying the old but by creating 
the new Habit. 

The apperceptive act is now complete. It first 
took up and integrated the object with the Ego 
and its content in an external fashion ; then it 
selected the object and integrated the same 
according to its own interest and needs ; finally 
it has redintegrated the object not only as a 
separate single thing, but has made a new integra- 
tion of it into a series or cycle, in which several 
correlated objects (events, actions, things) are 
still further unified. Thus has arisen an order 
within an order, and the single object takes its 
place in what may be called the social system of 
the Ego. The work of Apperception is done. 

Moreover, the inner society of the Ego with 
its objects ordered and integrated into Habits is 
the source of the outer society of man, in which 
Habit again will be a most important factor of 
order and organization. The Ego will realize 
itself, it will make its own world to live in, and 
make it after the pattern of itself. Indeed what 



204 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

else has it ultimately to take as its pattern? 
Society is the Ego realizing itself in the world. 

Herewith the entire process of Sense-percep- 
tion is brought to a conclusion. The object 
which in Sensation came upon the Ego in a vast, 
ceaselessly flowing stream, has been separated, 
taken up and ideated in Perception, and has been 
integrated with the Ego and its content, ordered 
and organized in Apperception. The object as 
an external thing, event, act, has come to an 
end, having been internalized and united with 
the Ego in all the stages of the latter' s move- 
ment. It is not destroyed, but is actually pre- 
served and made permanent, being rescued from 
the negative might of Space and Time, and being 
transformed into an ideal object out of sensuous 
externality. 

Thus the Ego has made the object one with 
itself. But tho process of the Ego requires sep- 
aration as well as unity; accordingly the Ego 
separates this ideated object from itself, holds 
the same up before itself as distinct, whereby 
this object, still retaining its ideality, becomes 
Image. At this point we pass out of the first 
stage of Intellect, which is Sense-perception, into 
the second stage, which is Representation. 

Looking backward again, we may observe that 
when the sensuous thing has been made to con- 
tribute to an infinite end, and thereby has been 
endowed with an infinite value, it has attained its 



APPEBCEPTION. 205 

culmination. That is, when the object of Sense- 
perception has been completely apperceived by 
the Ego, and filled with the highest gift of Ap- 
perception (which is the gift of infinite value), 
then we are done with it as a sensuous object, it 
has reached its last destiny, and Sense-perception 
has come to its end through its final fulfillment. 
If we take in the entire sweep of the present 
sphere, we see that the outer chaotic world of 
Sensation, with which we started, has been trans- 
formed into an inner ordered world of Apper- 
ception. We see also that Apperception returns 
to Sensation in a certain sense ; both strive to 
have totalities as their contents, worlds we have 
named them, though one be outer and the other 
be inner. Perception, on the contrary, particu- 
larizes, separates, and then internalizes; thus it- 
is the mediating principle in the present sphere 
of Sense-perception. 

General Observations on Apperception. 

1. Apperception is, on the whole, foreign to 
English Psychology, though it is beginning to 
creep into recent text-books. The treatment of 
it, however, remains desultory and capricious ; 
its special function in the total movement of the 
Ego is not distinctly seen, though it alone be cor- 
rectly enough described. Sometimes it is placed 
here, and sometimes there, in ahap-hazard sort of a 



206 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

way, a foreigner still, though he has to be recog- 
nized. We cannot help thinking that those two 
writers, Mill and Bain, famous for clearness, 
would have often been still clearer, could they 
have had the use of the word Apperception, and 
have seen distinctly its meaning. 

The older German Psychology also shows a 
want of Apperception. To be sure, the term is 
used in fluctuating senses by Leibnitz, Kant, and 
Hegel, but in them it never came to its fruitage. 
Pages of Hegel can be pointed out, in which the 
nature of Apperception is distinctly set forth, 
yet the Hegelian Psychology has no developed 
Apperception. 

The merit of having seen the importance and 
unfolded the true significance of Apperception 
belongs to Herbart and the Herbartians. We 
hold that this special work of theirs is the 
greatest contribution to modern Psychology. 
The recent discoveries of the physiological Psy- 
chologists are not to be underestimated, nor 
are they to be overestimated ; their import for 
Psychology proper, however, cannot be deemed 
so great as the above mentioned work of Herbart 
and his school. Moreover, a most weighty 
practical interest, that of pedagogy, has been 
enormously benefited by the knowledge of Ap- 
perception. It gives us special pleasure to recog- 
nize herein the merit of Herbart, for on many 
points we differ from him. In fact we think 



APPERCEPTION. 207 

that his doctrine of the Ego, the fundamental 
principle of his Psychology, is nothing but a 
huge mistake, and really contradicts his doctrine 
of Apperception. But at present the far more 
agreeable duty is appreciation, and we trust we 
have shown this not only in word but in deed, 
by ranging Apperception among the cardinal 
activities of mind, and thus giving to it one of 
the loftiest niches in the beautiful, well-ordered 
temple of Psyche. 

It is probable, however, that the Herbartians 
would disown the present writer as an expounder 
of their master. They will be apt to scent in 
the above treatment of Apperception an instance 
of the old faculty-psychology. The word Ap- 
perception is the Herbartian talisman opening the 
gates of Paradise, but the word faculty is the 
Herbartian devil, the frightful monster of the 
dark Underworld, where dwell Gorgons, Hydras, 
and Chimeras dire. It is simply astonishing to 
see what wry faces some of them can make at 
the bare mention of the term. Now we hold 
that the word faculty as applied to mind, can 
still be made to do good service, with a little 
correction. We notice that Herbart himself, 
after stoutly assailing the old faculty-psychology, 
still uses its terms, such as Perception, Im- 
agination, Judgment. This contradiction, how- 
ever, is very common in other schools beside 
the Herbartian : we shall come back to it later. 



208 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

But after all discountings for excesses of va- 
rious kinds and shortcomings, Apperception — 
the word, the thought and the application of 
it — remains the most fruitful contribution yet 
made to this century's Psychology, and the 
credit must be mainly given to Herbart. 

2. On account of the importance of the term, 
the history of Apperception has been set forth 
with a good deal of care and learning by German 
writers. Many authorities are cited for its 
usage; of these we shall select four, all of them 
distinguished philosophers, whose employment 
of the term forms the chief landmarks in its his- 
tory — Leibnitz, Kant, Herbart, Wunclt. 

The source of Apperception- — both word and 
meaning — is usually traced back to Leibnitz, 
that seed-thinker of two hundred years ago, who 
planted so many thought-germs, which have 
since his time sprouted forth into sunlight. The 
word is scattered by Leibnitz through a number 
of treatises, and is used in mainly two fluctuating 
senses. At times Apperception seems to mean 
in Leibnitz about the same as self-conscious- 
ness ; in an act of Perception I am conscious 
of perceiving, and this act of consciousness 
is something additional to Perception, and 
hence is named Apperception. The second 
meaning, however, is the source of the modern 
usage ; according to it Apperception is an ac- 
tivity of the soul along with its content. The 



ATPEBCEPTION. 209 

thought, however, is not elaborated, it remains a 
germ. 

Next, Kant makes much of Apperception in 
his Critique of Pure Reason, with a distinct 
Kantian sense, yet probably derived from Leib- 
nitz. Back of the sensuous percept and of all 
external experience are the pure ideas, which 
render sensation and experience possible. The 
transcendental Ego has its forms, its own activi- 
ties, which, however, are stimulated by the 
sense-world; the result is cognition. This inner 
activity of the pure Ego combining with the 
impression of the senses is called by Kant 
Apperception. Such an Ego is designated as 
transcendental since it lies beyond all external 
sensation and experience, and is, moreover, the 
condition of sensation and experience. Kant's 
Apperception, therefore, is the original activity 
of the Ego itself without including the acquired 
content of the Ego. 

Herbart now follows and traverses explicitly 
the Kantian notion of the transcendental Ego. He 
denies the spontaneous, original activity of mind 
independent of experience. Here comes in Her- 
bart's doctrine of the Ego (already alluded to, 
p. 27-9), which according to him has only the 
power of self-preservation (Selbsterhaltung) 
amid the battle of external impressions and ideas 
always taking place on its own arena. Through 
this very one-sidedness, however, Herbart puts 

14 



210 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the greater stress upon the acquired content of 
the Ego and its importance in every form of 
cognition. The result is, he establishes the new 
fact of Apperception, really the significant fact 
of it, and thus makes permanent his contribution. 
Many of his followers do not accept his doctrine 
of the Ego ; but quite everybody, disciple or not, 
accepts his doctrine in reference to the content 
of the Ego co-operating in the act of cognition. 
Its far-reaching importance both in psychology 
and pedagogy we shall once more impress upon 
the student, who is to cherish always the great 
deeds of the heroes of his science. 

After Herbart the most important contrib- 
utor to the development of Apperception is 
Wundt. His work in this aspect may be divided 
into two parts. First he has physiologized 
Apperception, tracing its course from the outer 
nerve-stimulus to the sensory centers, thence to 
the apperception center, which is located by him 
in the front part of the cerebrum, etc. Much of this 
is conjectural, much of it is simply a translation 
of the psychical fact obtained by introspection 
into physiological language, whereby little is 
gained, for us at least, and not a little is lost. 
A far more solid contribution is the second part 
of Wundt's work, in which he insists upon the 
activity of the will in Apperception, neglected 
by both Kant and Herbart. Upon the basis of 
will the chief distinction in the psychological 



APPEBCEPTION. 211 

process of Apperception can be made, which 
appears in the preceding account as Simple or 
Spontaneous Integration, and Selective or Voli- 
tional Integration, and has its parallelism therein 
with the antecedent stage of Perception and the 
succeeding stage of Memory. 

Such is a brief statement of the usage of the 
term Apperception in the works of the most emi- 
nent thinkers who have employed it — Leibnitz, 
Kant, Herbart, and Wundt. In this line of 
usage we observe a continuous unfolding. (For 
a fuller account of the history of Apperception, 
see Part III of Lange's Apperception , translated 
by the Herbart Club.) 

In the preceding treatment of Apperception we 
have sought to give validity to all its elements as 
developed by time, and to order its movement 
internally and externally, that is, in relation both 
to itself and to the total sweep of Psychology. 
In Apperception must be the element of the 
original, self-active Ego (Kant); in it must be 
also the element of experience (Herbart) ; in it 
must also be the element of will (Wundt), both 
unconscious and conscious. Still, further, Ap- 
perception must be grasped as the Psychosis, the 
living unitary principle of every psychical pro- 
cess, however minute ; thus it can specialize itself 
into the smallest details, without becoming iso- 
lated. For there has to be specialization, but 
there need not be isolation. Finally the move- 



212 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ment of Apperception must be seen genetically, 
evolving itself out of what goes before and into 
what comes after, by its own inner necessity. 
That it follows Perception and is succeeded by 
Memory is not a whim or an accident, but a 
psychical evolution. 

Too often has its treatment been capricious, it 
has been picked up anywhere and dropped any- 
where, at the mercy of the expounder, who has 
recognized no law and felt no inner ordering 
principle in the movement of his own Ego. 

All of which simply declares that the apper- 
ceptive act itself must apperceive Apperception ; 
the Ego is not to stand outside of its own activity, 
and glibly talk of the same as something wholly 
different from itself. The height, therefore, of 
Apperception is rightly to apperceive Appercep- 
tion. 

3. The relation of Apperception to Pedagogy 
has been already mentioned, and may be here 
looked at for a moment. It is not the Ego 
alone but the acquired content of the Ego also 
which integrates the given object ; it is knowl- 
edge which assimilates knowledge; it is the 
intellectual capital already won which chiefly 
wins other capital. The act of learning is 
essentially an act of Apperception ; the child, 
through its acquired knowledge, acquires the 
new knowledge. 

The question then rises, what knowledge best 



APPEBCEPTION. 213 

apperceives knowledge ? What shall be the true 
order of imparting instruction to the pupil ? 
The school curriculum thus becomes of great 
importance. The studies of one day, month or 
year must be so chosen, arranged and taught 
that they are the best apperceptive preparation 
for the studies of the next day, month or year. 
Thus education begins to base itself practically 
upon the fundamental psychological process of 
learning. Apperception alone, however, cannot 
tell what studies are to go into the curriculum, 
though it has much to say about the order and 
manner of instruction. 

4. The relation of Apperception to the doc- 
trine of Association has been already touched 
upon, and will again be considered under Mem- 
ory. Here, however, we may request the reader 
to note that what we have called Simple Integra- 
tion is the primal phase of Association ; the Ego 
with its content integrates or associates the 
sensuous object spatially and temporally, which 
is the foundation of the so-called Law of Con- 
tiguity in Space and Time. An integration also 
takes place when the object resembles some 
previous content of the Ego — Association by 
Resemblance. The fact now to be noticed is 
that the Ego spontaneously takes up the external 
world, and makes the same coalesce with itself. 
Hereafter the Ego will be equally ready to break 
this coalescence and to separate the associated 



214 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

object from itself. Both activities, as often 
seen already, are inherent in the Ego, constitut- 
ing phases of its complete process. 

5. At this point, then, the sense-world comes 
to an end, as far as it is presented immediately. 
The particular external object has been made 
internal, and so has reached its true destiny. 
But not only the single object, but the totality of 
the sense-world in a degree is transmuted into 
the Ego. We may use a metaphorical expres- 
sion and say that the percept is now laid away in 
the storehouse of the mind, aud there shares in 
the ideality of the Ego ; its reality has vanished, 
the non-Ego has been taken up and identified 
with the Ego ; the object is now made a participant 
in the Self, is endowed, so to speak, with self- 
hood, no longer being externally present, no 
longer coming to the mind through the senses, 
but through the mind itself. Moreover, the 
object is no longer in an external Space and 
Time, but these have become internal with it, 
and it is now in its own Space and Time. 

Manifestly we here behold the starting-point 
of a new realm, the external object is internal- 
ized; what shall we call it now ? It is the mind's 
copy of the object, or rather the object as men- 
tal ; it is the image. This image is itself to be 
taken up by the Ego, not from the outer world, 
but from the inner, not through the senses but 
through the Ego itself, and is to obtain a second 



APPEIiCEPTION. 215 

presentation, which has been often called a re- 
presentation. The Ego therein perceives the 
object within, the outer object having been over- 
made into the semblance of itself. What has 
the object lost? Its reality, its externality, its 
material fullness, and specially its independ- 
ence. It is now correlated, it has taken its place 
in an order, possibly in the universal order, 
if the Ego concerned is able to construe the 
same. Such is the ideality of the object, for in 
Sense-perception the Ego is ideal, but in Repre- 
sentation the object also is ideal, is Image. 

Retrospect of Sense-perception. 

The student has now before him the entire 
sweep of Sense-perception in its threefold move- 
ment — Sensation, Perception, and Appercep- 
tion. Each of these has again subdivided itself, 
not externally and capriciously, but internally 
and organically. Thus division has manifested 
itself in sufficient abundance; but at the same 
time there has always been the return out of 
division through the unifying act of the Psycho- 
sis. The unity of the mind has been vindicated 
(if we have succeeded in winning our point) to 
be not a dead, blank identity, not a mere nega- 
tive unity which negates difference and then ends 
itself in such negation, but a living, yea a think- 
ing unity which is the process of the Ego itself. 



216 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

1. The first fact, accordingly, in this brief 
review is the Psychosis of Sense-perception, 
whereby the latter is seen to be one act of one 
mind, specializing itself, yet just therein going 
along with itself and remaining itself. 

The three stages — Sensation, Perception, 
Apperception — are the three stages of the Ego 
in its process of internalizing the object ; Sensa- 
tion is the immediate, Perception is the divisive, 
Apperception is the unitary stage. But these 
designations are not the Psychosis by any means, 
though they be the preparation for it; they still 
leave the mind of the learner in a state of sepa- 
ration, division, analysis, helplessly floundering 
in the trammels of nomenclature, out of which 
the Psychosis must rescue him. This rescue 
comes when the Ego beholds itself as the inher- 
ent process of these three stages, and thus knows 
itself not merely as their abstract unity but as 
the concrete act of their unification. The Ego 
of the learner must recognize itself as the living 
center of knowledge before it can know with any 
degree of completeness. The Ego thus identi- 
fying the Ego as the process of Sense-perception 
is the Psychosis of the latter. 

Nor must we omit to notice in this retrospect 
that each of the three stages above mentioned 
(Sensation, Perception, and Apperception) is 
itself a total act of the Ego, and thus manifests 
by itself the Psychosis. Indeed, however 



APPERCEPTION. 217 

minute the act of the Ego, it is the whole Ego 
which acts, whereby the Psychosis again is 
shown. The unifying principle of mind must 
reveal itself in the smallest act of mind, just as 
the unifying principle of matter (itself therein a 
reflection of mind) reveals itself in the smallest 
microscopic speck of dust through gravity. It is 
a most important (though neglected) part of 
psychology to set forth this vital oneness of 
mind, which is the counterpart and the antidote 
to the ordinary psychical vivisection, life-endan- 
gering if not life-destroying, which has the habit 
of slashing into the mental organism pretty much 
anywhere, and leaving the dissevered fragments 
scattered about the dissecting room. Un- 
doubtedly we must have division, dissection, 
and even amputation ; but we can also have the 
healing (whole-making) restorative power of 
the Psychosis. 

To carry this retrospect into some further 
detail, let us fully make our own the fact that 
Sensation is a Psychosis, is the total move- 
ment of the Ego, yet in a special form ; that 
the Ego in Sensation first takes up immediately 
the molecular movement of the Senses, then 
separates itself from the same, othering and 
negating it, and finally restores and re-creates 
the sensuous object which started the molecular 
movement, thus manifesting the complete activity 
of itself. In like manner the Ego in Perception 



218 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

though in its divisive stage specially, shows its- 
total movement through the three stages of Im- 
pression, Attention, and Retention. The same 
holds true of Apperception, of which we have 
just given an exposition. All these stages are 
capable of still further specialization and divi- 
sion, which, however, must be again made whole 
and restored to the psychical totality through the 
Psychosis. 

At this point it becomes plain that we can 
forecast the future movement of psychology. 
If we have found its law or its universal method, 
we can in a general way know what is to be as 
well as what has been. We can, and must, to a 
degree, create its process; indeed we shall find 
that to think is to re-create the process of the 
Ego in the object. This process we can know 
and foreknow, being the most intimate fact of 
ourselves; thus we get a double relief: our inner 
world is freed from caprice, and our outer world 
from chaos. The Ego is, in its true reality, the 
order and the orderer; but it bears within itself 
the possibility of being disorder and the dis- 
ordered It can insist onremaining in separation, 
discord, negation; but its supreme function is the 
Psychosis, which is always the return and the 
restoration. 

2. The second point which may be here 
emphasized is the genetic procedure of psychol- 
ogy. This naturally follows from the foregoing 



APPERCEPTION. 219 

movement of the Ego, whose stages are unfolded 
one out of the other, the whole being connected 
by an inner process. It is the fundamental 
nature of the Ego or the Self to be creative or 
Self-unfolding; this fact of it is always to be 
shown in the development of its science. For 
example, in Sense-perception the three stages 
are not to be caught up at any place, defined 
formally, and then dropped out of sight; thus 
the Ego becomes the victim of its own divisive 
energy. The inner genetic act which passes, like 
an electric spark, from one separated part to 
another, must be made to manifest itself, since 
it is the vital link of connection. Again the 
formula fixed in words must be transcended, since 
the genetic act of the Ego is not a formula, 
which, however, is necessary to provoke it into 
realizing itself. 

3. The annulment which the extended object 
has to undergo before it can become a percept is 
usually a point of some difficulty in Sense-per- 
ception. The spatial extension of the object is 
at the start annulled by the senses, for the 
extended thing cannot enter the corporeal organ- 
ism immediately without destroying the same. 
If our physical body does not negate the material 
object in sensing it, the material object will 
negate our physical body. This knife easily 
enters my eye when spatially annulled; without 
such annulment its entrance would destroy my 



220 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

eye. The senses of the corporeal system thus 
negate or annul the extension of the object, and 
in this annulled condition transmit it to the cen- 
tral organ through which the Ego is stimulated. 

But the Ego, or the psychical activity, repro- 
duces the object as extended, and projects it as 
real into the external world. That is, the Ego 
annuls the annulment and restores the external 
form, recreating the object after its annulment 
through the senses. 

Herein we may note a characteristic of the 
Ego. It is inherently not negative, but the 
negation of the negative, and thereby positive. 
The Ego throughout Sense-perception has to 
annul the annulment of the object, and to posit 
the same anew ; only thus can it know exter- 
nality. This is the same fact which we have 
seen in the process of the Ego : it has to over- 
come the stage of difference, division, negation, 
and thus attain its true unity. The object as 
merely external is non-Ego; this is what must be 
annulled in the act of Sense-perception, which is 
the Ego negating the non-Ego, whereby the 
object is internalized and reproduced. 

To the student of thought it may be worth 
while to mention that the characteristic of the 
Ego above described is what some philosophers 
have called its " negativity." That is, the Ego 
takes up the negative, but takes it up in order 
to negate it and thereby to become positive. In 



APPEB CEP TIOK. 221 

this universe of ours the great positive fact is the 
Ego (human and divine), since it gets to be 
only through the negation of a negative. So 
the " negativity of the Ego " is more deeply a 
positivity. 

4. The question may be asked, what Ego, 
whose Ego is this to which appeal is so often 
made in psychology? Primarily, it is your own 
particular Ego which is now thinking and acting, 
the Ego of the individual, whose characteristic is 
to know itself, to be self-conscious. In the sec- 
ond place, it is the Ego of your neighbor, which 
your Ego recognizes to be like itself, fully en- 
dowed with self-consciousness. Thus you and he 
are one, yet two, and many. In the third place, 
the Ego of psychology is the universal Ego, the 
common element in all Egos, yours, mine, and 
the rest; so that we recognize the psychical 
process as our own in particular, and everybody's 
in general. Idiosyncrasies, illusions, maladies, 
insanities form important by-paths in the science 
of the Ego, but the present book intends to sur- 
vey only the highway along which travels the 
universal human soul in its career of development. 



CHAPTER SECOND.— REPRESENTATION. 

The result of Sense-perception is that the ex- 
ternal object has been internalized, and has been 
brought into implicit, unconscious unity with the 
Ego. The next great step is that this internalized 
object is made explicit, and rises distinctly into the 
field of consciousness; it becomes object, though 
still internal. 

The Ego separates itself from its own ideated 
content, reproduces the same, which it holds up 
before itself, and calls the Image. The Ego, 
having translated the outer object into percept, 
now translates the percept back again into the 
object, which, however, remains internal, being 
the Image aforesaid. This is the second great 
Sphere of the Intellect, the separation, which 
deals with the explicit Image in all its mani- 
festations, and is called Representation. It rep- 
(222), 



BEPHESENTATION. 223 

resents the object in the new form of Image, 
which is now the central fact of the mental 
process. 

The Image has been present in Sense-percep- 
tion, but we have paid no attention to it, inas- 
much as we were always looking at the sensuous 
object and were watching its development through 
the Ego. No difference between image and 
object entered the mind distinctly, they were 
one and unconscious throughout Sensation, Per- 
ception and Apperception, which were the 
process of unifying the external object with 
the Ego. 

But in Representation the object is presented 
a second time, not by mere repetition, but in a 
new form, taken by the Ego from the Ego, and 
known as its own. Now the difference between 
image and object is posited, is the central conscious 
fact, controlling the whole sphere of Represen- 
tation. Thus the second stage of the Ego, that of 
separation, is here emphasized, but of course we 
must carefully observe what is separated. Note 
accordingly, again, that the thing which is now 
separated is object still, but the object which 
has been ideated with the Ego previously, and 
then removed and held up by itself. Such an 
object is internal, ideal; yet a copy of the real 
object, at first a mental portrait of the reality. 

The Image is, therefore, the new object in 
the world of Representation, as the material 



224 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

thing was the object in the world of Presen- 
tation. The Image is not given to the Ego 
from without, but taken out of the Ego from 
within ; this calling forth the separation of the 
internalized object is the first stage of Repre- 
sentation, whose whole process takes place in 
the mind. In Sense-perception the object was 
furnished from the outer world ; in Representa- 
tion the Ego furnishes the object ; I reproduce 
it out of myself. The tree which I see before 
me is a percept ; but when I separate this per- 
cept, and look at it within and not at the tree 
without, I have the Image before me. Similar 
to the original it is undoubtedly, but also dis- 
similar; the external realm has been internal- 
ized and made my own. 

The Image is the Ego's, and is next to go 
through the process of the Ego; thereby it is to 
become more deeply identified with the Ego. 
It will unfold from being the mere external copy 
of the object to being filled with the content of 
the Ego in the Symbol, when it will pass over 
into Thought. 

The Ego in Representation is, therefore, repro- 
ductive, reproducing the Image, which was pre- 
viously implicit. But the Ego in Sensation was 
also reproductive; that is, it had to reproduce 
the sensuous object before it could experience a 
sensation. It has already been noted that when 
I see a house and take it up into my Ego, I 



BEPBESENTATION. 225 

annul its extension, its geometrical figure, and 
then re-create it and project it out of me, trans- 
forming the external object into the product of 
my own activity. In Representation, however, 
the Ego reproduces the Image, that is, repro- 
duces the reproduction of the object in Sensa- 
tion, the sensuous object not being present, 
though reproduced. Now the object is the Ego's 
own, being made by it or made over by it, and 
hence is the ideal copy, picture or mental like- 
ness of the external thing. In like manner Per- 
ception and Apperception are stages in the 
unfolding of the object present yet reproduced 
by the Ego. Representation is, however, the 
reproduction of the Image, that is, the repro- 
duction of the reproduction of the sensuous 
object, as given by the Ego in Sense-perception. 
The first reproduction of the object is that of 
Sense-perception, the second is that of Repre- 
sentation. Now it is to be observed that this 
second reproduction involves the entire corporeal 
machinery of Sensation, the bodily organism is 
moved from within by the Ego, which becomes 
the stimulus instead of the external object and 
starts the neural molecular movement. When I 
recall the image of a house which I have seen, 
the retina is stimulated and acts in response 
quite as if the object itself were present. The 
Ego takes the place of the external visible thing, 
and of the waves of light coming from it; the 

15 



226 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego is the excitation from within, and not from 
without, as in Sense-perception. In order the 
better to call up the image, I shut my eyes, I 
exclude light and all externality ; the mean factor 
of Sensation, my nervous organism, is under the 
control of my Ego, and I stimulate the nerve- 
ends, thus reproducing the entire organic process. 
So, in Representation, the Ego is the whole 
cycle, stimulus and all; this cycle includes not 
simply the mean factor of Sensation but its 
external factor also, under the form of image. 

We have already noticed that the Ego must 
reproduce or recreate the outer object in order to 
sense it, annulling its external shape as extended, 
and then projecting it anew as real. Only in 
this way can the Ego grasp any reality. The 
bullet before me cannot enter my brain directly ; 
or, if it does, I am a dead man, and shall not be 
able to see it or anything else. But I now see 
it, I reduce its extension to the zero-point, I annul 
it as external, make it internal, then project it or 
reproduce it as object. That is, my Ego must 
ideally undo it and make it over again in order 
to possess it even as a percept present to the 
senses. Here lies the reason why the Ego can 
recall or reproduce this bullet as an Image ; it 
has created the same in the act of Perception, 
and now in Representation reproduces that re- 
production. The sensuous object having become 
the Ego's own through the latter' s creative act, 



BEPBESENTATION. 227 

is separated, individualized, held up by itself as 
Image. Such is the specially separative work of 
the Ego in the present sphere of Representation. 
The Ego in Sense-perception has to create the 
external world in order to perceive it ; then it 
separates from itself (or reproduces) this created 
external world of its own, and this is the realm 
of the Image. 

The present sphere of Representation lies 
between perceiving the real object and thinking 
the pure thought; it is thus the intermediate 
sphere of Intellect, which, however, not only 
lies between the two given extremes but mediates 
thetn. Through the Image the sensuous object 
moves into Thought by means of the activity of 
the Ego, which finally thinks the object, after 
sensing it and imaging it. 

The sphere of Representation will continue as 
long as the Ego stands in relation to its mental 
copies, to its images of the external world. 
Herein we see the separation which is the char- 
acteristic of this sphere ; the Ego is divided 
into itself and the copy, which dualism is what 
it is seeking to overcome. The Image is still 
different from the Ego, being taken from the 
external object, and bearing its likeness. The 
dualism just mentioned is not overcome till the 
Image transcends its limits and passes into 
Thought. This transition is necessary, inas- 
much as the Ego, being more than Image, 



228 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

being indeed Image-maker and master over 
the limit and all difference, can not be ade- 
quately represented by the Image, but must 
be expressed by something which transcends the 
same and thus corresponds with itself. Such is 
our glimpse in advance over into the realm of 
Thought, which is the third stage of Intellect. 

It was said that in Eepresentation the Ego was 
in its second stage, that of difference, separa- 
tion, dualism. But in Sense-perception there 
were also repeated cases of this same second 
stage : the student is, therefore, to note carefully 
the distinctive act of the present separation, 
which is that the Ego separates the ideated 
object from itself and holds the same before 
itself as Image. Herein, then, we see the divis- 
ion in its special form, but we must see more, 
namely the Psychosis which underlies this move- 
ment, and which is the universal psychical act 
ever present in the manifestations of the Ego. 
Thus the separation just given is not an isolated, 
or a capricious distinction, not a disunited fac- 
ulty of mind, but is an integral element in the 
total process of the Ego. 

The movement of Representation passes 
through the following stages: — 

I. Memory — the Image as copy of the exter- 
nal object is separated and identified, or is re- 
called and recognized. 

II. Imagination — the Image as Symbol, in 



BEPBESENTATION. 229 

which the Image is separated into Form and 
Meaning, through whose process with each other 
the Meaning moves more and more into posses- 
sion of the Form, showing the various stages of 
Symbolism, and creating a world of Symbols. 

III. Memorization — this world of Symbols 
having been created and externalized into objects, 
must be internalized by the Ego, whose destiny 
is to dwell in such a world. This last stage we 
might also call Symbolic or Apperceptive 
Memory. 

Thus the image never vanishes in Representa- 
tion ; it corresponds to the sensuous object in 
Presentation or Sense-perception. For this rea- 
son the whole representative sphere might be 
called Imagination (the sphere of Image), were 
not the usage of the word too deeply fixed to 
indicate the entire second stage of Intellect. So 
we limit the word to the symbol-making power. 

Through the Image man begins to create a new 
world for himself, of course out of existing 
materials. External nature may be looked upon 
as God's imagery or the Divine Act of Represen- 
tation. What He makes as object unto Himself, 
becomes the real object. But the human Ego 
must first take up this real object, internalize it, 
unite it with Self through Sense-perception. 
Then in Representation this Ego must separate 
it from itself, and project it as the new ideal 
object or Image. Still further, the Ego pro- 



230 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ceeds to transform the Image, fills the same 
with its own meaning, and thereby calls forth 
the world of Symbols. Finally this symbolic 
world must be internalized anew by every Ego 
entering it ; every child has to master for itself 
the Symbols made by its race. Such is the 
complete sweep of the Ego in Representation, 
whereof the more essential details will now be 
given. 

Before starting, however, we shall once more 
call before us the Image (the central fact of the 
present sphere) as generated out of Sense- per- 
ception by the act of the Ego in its separative 
stage. The Image is the ideated object of Sense- 
perception, as separated in the first place from 
its immediate unity with the Ego, as separated in 
the second place from its immediate unity with 
the sensuous thing of which it is the copy, as 
separated in the third place from the stream of 
imagery (corresponding in this inner world to the 
stream of sensation in the outer) and thereby 
individualized into a distinct Image. All this is 
the work of the Ego, essentially a work of re- 
creation ; we may deem it a reconstruction of an 
inner temple of mind from the materials given 
by an external sense-world. 



SECTION FIBST.— MEMOBT. 

The act of Memory, in its most general form, 
is the present reproduction of a past percept. 
There must have been the previous Sense-per- 
ception, which is now reproduced by the Ego 
and identified as its own. Such a percept be- 
comes the Image, which in Memory is simply 
dealt with as the copy of the external object, 
and is not elaborated within itself into a Symbol 
or sign. 

Leaving out the stimulus to Memory, which 
will be considered later, we observe in its total 
act three stages. First is the Ego separating 
from itself the Image, and holding the same 
apart from itself (that is, from the Ego) as 
something distinct, something individual. Second 
is the Ego projecting this disengaged Image into 
past time as a former experience or activity of 

(231) 



232 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Self, which is also active in the present. 
Here is the separation of the Ego into Then and 
Now; it was active then and it is active 
now; it divides itself, as it were, into two 
activities. Third is the Ego uniting both; it 
recognizes itself to be one and the same in both, 
and so identifies in a single process past and 
present. Thus the Ego knows itself as having 
persistence through Time, and performs the 
Psychosis of Memory by dividing itself into 
Then and Now, and unifying the twofold element 
into its own activity. 

I meet to-day a gentleman on the street, to 
whom I was presented yesterday ; I remember 
him. I must have seen him before in order to 
remember him, and I must now have some stim- 
ulus, which is the meeting him, in order to start 
the act of memory. What is the process which 
takes place rapidly in my mind? I first separate 
the Image of that former occurrence, which is 
ideated within my Ego; next, I must at this 
moment project the same Image into yester- 
day or into some past time, when the percept 
was received; finally I recognize myself to 
be the same person then and now, and therein 
identify my past and present activities, whose 
respective contents are the Image and the object. 
The spectre of the former gentleman blends with 
the real gentleman before me; I recognize him, 
whereof the outward sign is that I salute him and 



MEMOBT. 233 

may also call him by name. But I had to recognize 
myself before I could recognize the gentleman ; I 
had to know myself as one and the same in the 
Then and the Now, before I could unite Image and 
object, or connect a past experience with a pres- 
sent one. No doubt all this may go on very 
rapidly, but at times it can be slow, indeed I 
may be unable to make the identification. The 
complete Psychosis, however, must be made if 
there be an act of memory. 

We have already seen in Sense-perception how 
the Ego comes upon the Time-limit of the object, 
and masters it through an act of Attention, which 
holds the perceived object fast and makes it per- 
sist through temporal succession, for a while at 
least. But the Ego in Memory carries the 
mastery much farther ; what has disappeared, it 
calls back to existence ; what has been lost in 
Time, it restores to Time, and thus anew con- 
quers the Vanishing. The dead are resurrected 
in Memory ; even the external world having been 
once ideated by the Ego, is everlasting ; or if it 
passes away, it can again be called forth by the 
creative fiat. All past is present through Mem- 
ory, and man lives in the eternal presence of his 
own total Self. Memory i3 what causes the soul 
to endure through all change, and makes the life 
of man a Whole and not a temporary fragment. 
In Memory there is, accordingly, a most power- 
ful, indeed an overwhelming suggestion, which is 



234 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

that the Ego persists through all duration; Mem- 
ory is the mind's strong intimation of its own 
immortality. 

Observe, then, that Memory makes the Van- 
ishing vanish, and is therein the primordial 
negation of the Negative which is Time, the 
all-destroying, all-swallowing monster of the 
Universe, figured in the My thus of the ancient 
Greeks under the name and deeds of Kronus, 
who was in the habit of devouring his children. 
But Time has to take his own medicine, which is 
properly administered by Memory, whereat he 
vomits up again everything that he has swal- 
lowed, sending forth past into present — a fact 
which is also hinted in the same old Mythus. 

The Image or the mental copy of the object is 
preserved by the Ego unconsciously in Sense- 
perception, is fused into the simple unity of the 
Ego with itself, in which the conscious differ- 
ence vanishes. The Image is not laid away in 
some brain-cell or nerve-fibre, or in any par- 
ticular place ; the Ego is just the inwardizing 
and idealization of all locality and particularity ; 
it has its own Space and Time. Even though 
the Image should lie in some central tract, the 
questions still remains, How can the Ego pick it 
up? Here physiological psychology finds its 
chief difficulty in accounting for Memory; it 
seizes the mind as local and particular, not as 
ideal and non-material, and so attributes to 



MEMORY. 235 

Memory the characteristics of matter, of? which 
it is just the negation. We can hardly think of 
an act of Memory as " habit working in the 
nerve-centers," unless this habit be the Ego 
itself. 

In Apperception we saw the Ego making the 
external object internal, and ordering the same 
through itself and its content. But in Memory 
the process is reversed ; the Ego makes this 
internalized content external again, yet not as 
before, but as ideal ; the sensuous object is re- 
called and recognized as Image. Thus Memory 
is, from this point of view, the opposite of Apper- 
ception, and springs from the reverse act of 
Association. We have already directed atten- 
tion to the fact that the so-called Laws of 
Association move in opposite ways: they inte- 
grate (or associate) in Apperception, and they 
separate (or dissociate) in Memory. Still, to the 
latter activity the name of Association is usually 
applied, though it be primarily the work of Dis- 
sociation. The movement is, the Image is dis- 
sociated from the apperceptive Ego, or from the 
storehouse of the past, and is associated with the 
recollective Ego or with the object in the Pres- 
ent. Both acts, however, belong together, are 
parts of one process ; there can be no Memory 
without both Dissociation and Association, the 
separating and the uniting; that is, every act of 
Memory must be seen finally as the Psychosis. 



236 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The usage of the word Memory is by no means 
uniform in the history of Psychology. It has 
often been employed to signify Retention as well 
as Recall, but the two are really opposite pro- 
cesses. To be sure, Memory is conditioned 
upon Retention, the percept must have been 
obtained and retained, before it can be recalled. 
Still the act of Retention pertains emphatically 
to Sense-perception, and not to Representation; 
the sensuous object must be ideated and pre- 
served first, then its Image can be separated by 
the Ego. 

Some psychologists have divided Memory into 
three distinct faculties, and called them the 
Conservative, the Reproductive, and the Recog- 
nitive. The Conservative faculty, however, 
stands for the work of Retention, as above 
noted; the Memory, as we use the word, does 
not retain but recalls. This last act of recalling 
the object is named the Reproductive faculty, or 
the act of resuscitating the unconscious percept 
to fresh life and presence in the Image. The 
Recognitive faculty is the act of recognizing the 
percept as the Ego's own ; having been acquired 
at some former time it is now identified. This 
division, though it touches valid points, must be 
set aside, as it totally lacks the Psychosis. 

We have observed that Memory, as a factor 
in the entire process of Representation, deals 
with the Image as the simple copy of the sensuous 



MEMORY. 237 

object, which copy is separated from its ideated 
condition by the Ego, projected into past time, 
and recognized in the present. Now this pro- 
cess of Memory goes through the various stages 
of development; these stages furnish the true 
basis for the divisions of Memory, which are 
three. 

I. Spontaneous, or Involuntary Memory; the 
immediate separation of the Image, without con- 
scious volition; the spontaneous act of the Ego, 
which, being difference in itself as well as unity, 
divides the Image from itself through its own 
nature, being stimulated from without or from 
within. Here lies primarily the work of Asso- 
ciation in recalling. 

II. Voluntary or Intentional Memory ; the 
separation of the Image is now intentional, being 
done by the Ego through its own will, which 
wrests the Image, by force as it were, from 
its perceptive condition. Herein Volition, not 
Association, is the chief power in recalling. 

III. Systematic Memory ; the Image is sepa- 
rated or recalled by means of a system, whose 
principle is in general to unite the spontaneous 
and the voluntary activities of Memory, which 
union is the common basis of mnemonical sys- 
tems. 

This last is the act of Redintegration, which 
unites the two previous stages, wherewith the 
development of Memory is brought to an end. 



238 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The Image has had everything possible done for 
it, when the Ego sets up this elaborate machinery 
to seize it and to tear it out of its state of 
implicit ideation. The reader must not fail to 
see the Psychosis in the foregoing movement of 
Memory, since just that is the spiritual life of 
it, as well as its integration with the totality of 
mind. Still further, in the following detailed 
exposition, the Psychosis is the common process 
in every form of Memory, and hence is its con- 
necting principle not only internally with itself, 
but also externally with all Psychology. 

I. Spontaneous Memory. 

The Ego disengages from itself the Image of 
the former event or thing spontaneously, follow- 
ing some bent or tendency of its own, which has 
been called into activity through a present event 
or thing. 

The classic instance is taken from Hobbes' 
Leviathan (I. 3) : "In a company in which the 
conversation turned upon the late civil war, 
what could be conceived more impertinent than 
for a person to ask abruptly, what was the value 
of a Eoman denarius? On a little reflection, 
however, I was easily able to trace the train of 
thought which suggested the question; for the 
original subject of discourse naturally introduced 
the King (Charles I.), and of the treachery of 



MEMORY. 239 

those who surrendered his person to his enemies; 
this again introduced the treachery of Judas 
Iscariot, and the sum of money he received for 
his reward. " 

Here an event of the present disengages 
through the Ego an image of a past event by 
means of the similarity of the two events in the 
mind the person indicated. This was manifestly 
a company of Royalists ; suppose it were a com- 
pany of Puritans conversing of the same occur- 
rence. The association would have been just 
the opposite. The mention of the King would 
not have recalled Christ, but Judas Iscariot at 
the start, whose fate the Puritan Ego would have 
deemed parallel in desert to that of the traitor 
monarch, though the one executed himself and 
the other was executed. Note, therefore that 
the native and acquired tendencies of the Ego de- 
termine the association and the recall of the 
image, though the external object or event is the 
stimulus of its activity. 

In the spontaneous flow of images one after 
another, the Ego seems to be working automati- 
cally; it separates image after image from its 
stores, without any conscious act of will. Some 
phase of this process is going on all the while, 
constituting the unconscious background of the 
Ego's activity ; the mind is always linking to- 
gether its present and its past in varied propor- 
tions. The will breaks into this stream of 



240 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

images and brings forth the deed ; but if the will 
lapse for a certain period and leave the Ego to 
its spontaneous working, we have the phenomena 
of day-dreaming or revery; then if conscious- 
ness be taken away by sleep, there is the sport 
of associating imagery known as the dream ; 
finally if rationality be removed, there is the 
irrational play of association in the form hallu- 
cination and insanity. 

Thus there is in Memory an inner world of 
images always rising from and flowing back 
to the Ego, as there was an outer world of 
sensations flowing to the Ego in Sense-percep- 
tion. 

Spontaneous Memory is the field of Associa- 
tion, or of Integration reversed. As Appercep- 
tion ordered and internalized the sensuous object, 
bringing it into ideal implicit unity with the 
Ego, so Memory spontaneously turns about the 
process, and makes the ideal object explicit, free, 
separated, yet in a new union with itself through 
recognition. 

Here again in Spontaneous Memory there will 
be a fresh movement of the Ego completing 
itself in three stages. 

I. First is External Association, in which the 
external object comes to the image through the 
Ego, separates this image from its storehouse 
and unites the same with itself. I see a tree, I 
recall its place in my childhood when I played 



MEMORY. 241 

under it, and the faces of persons who were with 
me there at successive times. Such an object 
has an ideal Space and an ideal Time in my 
Memory, and is recalled by the means of the 
real Space and the real Time of the Present, and 
is also recognized as my former percept. 

1. As the sensuous object is ordered spatially 
alongside of the other contents of the Ego in 
Apperception and becomes image, so the Ego 
reverses the process and spatially restores this 
image to its corresponding sensuous object. 
The presence of the real man brings back the 
image of him as seen before, and an identifica- 
tion of the two, the reality and the image. 
Another man who was seen with him may be 
also recalled. Contiguity of place forms a link 
of Association, as well as sameness of place. 

2. In like manner succession in Time associates 
two objects, and if the one be present, the other 
recurs spontaneously. If I saw two friends 
yesterday on the street, one shortly after the 
other, to-day the presence of either is likely to 
recall the other. 

3. But in most acts of external Association, 
both these elements are fused; Space (alongside- 
ness) and Time (afterness) are commingled in 
an act of Simultaneity (togetherness ). When I 
see two friends successively I see them also con- 
tiguously, that is, in a spatial environment in 
which they are joined. The Time-movement has 

16 



242 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

a Space-framework, more or less in the back- 
ground, yet always visible. 

We may again summon before us for com- 
parison External Association in Memory and 
External Integration in Apperception, both of 
them dealing with the spatio-temporal element. 
In External Association' we bring and join the 
Where of the Past to the Where of the Pres- 
ent, while in External Integration we bring and 
join the Where of the Present to the Where of 
the Past. In the first case we separate and 
recall, in the second case we unite and apper- 
ceive. We, seeing a copy of a picture by 
Raphael, remember the place where we saw it in 
Italy. At the start we integrate the place here 
(the present) with the place there (the past), 
apperceiving the present object through past 
knowledge ; then, in Memory, we separate and 
recall one or both together, associating past with 
present, or the spatial There with the spatial 
Here. In like manner we both apperceive and 
recall the temporal element or the Then and the 
Now. 

II. Such is the most external and mechanical 
of all forms of Association, that through Space 
and Time, and the product is the most external 
and mechanical of all kinds of Memory. But 
next the Ego begins to make distinctions in the 
object, separating it into qualities, as color, 
shape, size, etc., and to associate by means of 



MEMORY. 243 

these abstract properties, they being abstracted 
from the total object. Such is what we may 
name Qualitative Association, in which the Ego 
is seeking to bring together the Image and 
the object on a deeper line, through a more 
internal bond. The previous stage took things 
in their outer wholeness, now they are divided 
up into manifold qualities, and the Ego asserts 
therein its own divisive principle. But even in 
qualities the act of distinction continues, some 
being distinguished as more internal and essen- 
tial than others, so that Association may be 
profound or superficial, according to the quality 
associated. 

We found in Apperception the qualities of the 
sensuous object apperceived and internalized, 
now the movement is reversed and they are 
called back to and by the sensuous object, and 
united with the same in the form of an image. 

We may here also in Qualitative Memory dis- 
tinguish the triple movement of the Ego. 

1. Resemblance; in some quality the object is 
like the image, the latter at once moves from its 
anchorage and unites or associates with the 
former. The red color of the ball, or its round 
form, or its size may join it spontaneously to 
a former . percept, and bring the same into 
memory. 

2. Contrast; in some quality the object is 
quite the opposite of the image, still the latter 



244 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

at once associates itself with the former. The 
giant calls up the image of the dwarf. It is 
manifest that the two opposing elements are 
united in the Ego, which must be itself both 
Resemblance and Contrast ; the Ego must within 
itself be the opposite of itself, and in it the two 
sides of the contradiction must find their one 
underlying principle. 

3. Combination; through contrasting objects 
they are united by an inner bond, they are made 
alike through being different, and thus asso- 
ciated anew. Memory now works through the 
total movement of the Ego, recalling and 
recognizing unity in multiplicity, the likeness in 
the opposition. 

III. We have now reached the sphere of what 
may be called Total Association, which is the 
Association of totalities or of a whole integrated 
series. The Ego separates from itself, through 
the stimulus of the present object, a mass of 
previous integrations in the form of the Image, 
recognizes the same as its own, and unites it with 
the object. Or, the total thing, internally and 
externally, is disengaged and associated. 

We found that the previous stage, Association 
through qualities, deepened finally into associat- 
ing through the inner essence of things, through 
the common element in both Resemblance and 
Contrast, which common element lay in the 
unifving act of the Ego. 



MEMORY. 245 

But now the totality of the object with its former 
integrations is separated from the Ego and recog- 
nized in Memory. For instance a botanist sees a 
red flower, it recalls not simply another flower, or 
another red object, but the very nature of the 
flower, or of the vegetable kingdom ; in the one 
plant he beholds the science of botany. 

Previously the apperception of the plant was 
the work of his Ego, which ordered the whole 
vegetable world. Now, in Memory, the process 
is reversed, the plant seen recalls the entire 
apperceived world of plants, recalls the total Ego 
as organized in botanical science. 

Herein we shall point out the three stages, 
which show themselves in this sphere. 

1. The object stimulating the Ego, causes it 
to disengage an integrated cycle or order of im- 
ages, which are united together in the Ego. The 
object comes upon the Ego, which by its very 
nature has to respond and separate not only 
some single image, but a little family of images, 
or perchance a large family of them. So in the 
instance just given, the presence of the one small 
plant may call up the total organization of the 
plant-world in the mind of the botanist. 

2. Just as in integrating the sensuous object 
different Egos manifested the greatest differences, 
so it is in the reverse process, that of associating 
the integrated cycle of images with the stimulat- 
ing object. One person travels through a country 



246 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

and sees little or nothing; another person, 
coming with due information or with the 
right stores of apperceptions, has the most 
wonderful power of Association, and obtains 
a vast inerease of his knowledge. Hence the 
somewhat paradoxical statement: a person 
finds in a new country what he brings with him. 
In fact, not only new countries are thus made 
known, but also new discoveries in science are 
brought to light. Through his previous in- 
tegrated stores, Newton associated the fall of 
the apple with the movement of the earth and 
the rest of the planets. 

3. Amid these manifold differences of the 
individual Egos, however, we are to return to 
the common element ; they all have this process 
of disengaging the integrated series of Images, 
and of associating them with the present object. 
The outcome of the movement of Total Associa- 
tion is that the Ego grasps itself as this process 
of the disengagement and new association of the 
integrated series. It knows itself as the entire 
movement stimulated by the external object. 
But this object next is controlled by the Ego, 
wherewith we have passed into a new sphere. 

Taking a look back at the movement of 
Spontaneous Memory, we observe the Psychosis 
in its three stages, corresponding to the imme- 
diate, separative, and unitary stages of the Ego. 
Still its special characteristic persists through 



MEMORY. 247 

this whole process; that is, Spontaneous Memory 
remains spontaneous, it is stimulated to activity 
primarily from without, responding immediately 
to the external stimulus. 

But the Ego in Total Association begins to 
determine the object, having unified its divisions, 
and recalled it as a whole. Still the object is 
the stimulus to the Memory, which takes it up, 
yet as unified by the Ego. Thus the object is 
implicitly determined by the Ego, which is next 
to determine the same explicitly in the matter of 
separating and recalling — Voluntary or Voli- 
tional Memory. 

II. Voluntary Memory. 

The Ego withdraws itself from the element of 
Impression and Association, collects itself within 
itself and proceeds to recall through an act of 
Will, that is, to separate the Image wished for 
from its apperceived condition and to identify 
the same with the object. 

In this movement of Voluntary Memory we 
shall observe three stages : 

I. The recall through an immediate act of 
Will takes place. — The Immediate Seizure of 
the Image. 

II. The recall through an immediate act of 
Will is negated, and so doe3 not take place, the 
process of Memory is broken atwain. — Forget- 
fulness. 



248 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

III. The recall takes place through a voli- 
tional act united with a spontaneous act, by 
whose combined power, Forgetfulness is over- 
come. — The Mediate Seizure of the Image. 

In the present sphere the Ego selects what it 
seeks to recall, hence Voluntary Memory is 
parallel with Selective Integration of the preced- 
ing sphere of Apperception. 

The previous stage of Memory, the spontane- 
ous, showed the Ego acting immediately in 
response to Association, and separating the 
image from its storehouse through the stimulus 
of the object. But now there is the Will enter- 
ing and making the separation through its activ- 
ity ; the Ego frees itself from the outside 
influence of Association, or uses it at discretion, 
summoning itself to proceed from within. Thus 
the Ego wrests the image from Apperception, 
and brings the same before itself by an act of 
Volition, whereby the Ego is shown dividing 
itself from the external power of Association. 
This is Voluntary Memory, whose energy comes 
from within the Ego, by intention. It must 
know and recognize beforehand what it seeks. 

Herein too we observe the separation: the 
Ego withdraws itself from the outer determina- 
tion through the object, and determines itself 
internally to fetch the image from the latter' s 
hiding-place. 

I. Immediate Seizure, We wish to recall the 



ME MOBY. 249 

name of a certain person ; the Ego of its own 
inner power collects itself and throws itself upon 
the object sought for, which lies somewhere in 
our past experience, seizes it directly and drags 
it into the present. Such is what we call the 
Immediate Seizure of the Image by Memory 
(Volitional), the total Ego of the present reaches 
out and grasps some particular of the past, 
separates it from its apperceptive condition and 
makes it again present in image. 

The peculiarity of Volitional Memory is that it 
knows beforehand what it wants to get, it recog- 
nizes in advance of separating. A certain face I 
wish to recall when I hear a name; the knowing 
that I have such a face in my storehouse goes 
before the recall ; when I have recognized it, I 
recall it. In Spontaneous Memory the image 
rises of itself through Association with some 
object and is then recognized. 

We shall seek to grasp the general trend of 
Immediate Seizure, which has many shades. 

1. The child's Memory is known to be the 
most immediate of all, showing the Immediate 
Seizure of the immediate object as recalled or 
imaged. Its stores are easily separable, they 
still stand near to the sensuous object, they do 
not sink away into the universality of the Ego, 
but remain special. The child best remembers 
the particulars of Sensation ; Memory is still akin 
to Sensation, hence its readiness, its vividness. 



250 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

2. But with Age the Ego generalizes, clas- 
sifies, and therewith the Memory loses its char- 
acter of particularity. It now seizes and recalls 
reflection, abstraction, the class which embraces 
the particular. Thus Memory recalls the object 
as double, as image on the one hand, and as 
general notion on the other. A child may pic- 
ture far more vividly a church than a grown 
man ; yet the latter will recall it also with its 
class, as a Gothic church for instance. Note 
here the twofoldness of the object recalled. 

3. Finally the power of the Memory over the 
particular almost ceases, while the general ad- 
vances decidedly into the foreground. The 
principle is remembered, while the special inci- 
dent or object has a tendency to fade away. 
Such is the case mostly with old men ; they are 
wise because they are universal; the youth 
chafes at their wisdom, because he has particu- 
larity; with the one the general principle is the 
rule, with the other concrete instance. Still the 
old man must seize immediately, for instance, the 
thought together with the word which he wants 
for expressing the same, else he is unintelligible. 
Indeed if one loses his memory for particulars, 
the memory for generals is undermined, since 
the general principle also has its particular ele- 
ment, namely, it is this principle and not that. 

Thus Memory develops a negative side, it loses 
its power of recall, while possessing the object; 



MEMORY. 251 

it through itself passes over into Forgetfulness, 
which belongs to all ages, yet is most manifest 
in old age. 

II. Forgetfulness. The act of separating the 
Image is not always under the immediate control 
of the Will. The Ego is unable to disengage the 
Image from itself at command, without the 
spontaneous element of the Ego. In Forgetful- 
ness the Ego is in a state of self-opposition: it 
knows that it has an ideated object within itself, 
still it cannot recall the same. The Ego as Voli- 
tion commands the image to be given up, but the 
Ego as Retention refuses to respond. The effort 
must now be to overcome Forgetfulness ; this is 
accomplished by putting the ideated content 
under the control of the Will. The movement is 
as follows: — 

1. The simple form of Forgetfulness is the 
mere lapse of Memory between two periods of 
time. You go to town to attend to some matter, 
but you forget to do so ; you think of it before 
you leave home and after you come home. The 
Will does not act at the right time, there is a 
spontaneous lapse ; other things crowded out this 
activity possibly ; such a case we may entitle a 
case of Spontaneous Obliviscence. 

2. From this involuntary lapse of Memory we 
pass to the direct defiance of the Will on the part 
of Memory, or of the ideated content. We try 
to bring back such and such an event or date ; 



252 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

there is a most direct refusal given to Volition, 
which recoils from the effort thwarted. Thus 
the separation between the Will and the thing 
willed is complete, is acknowledged. The Ego 
is aware that it has the treasure asked for, but it 
declines to yield the same to authority. It is thus 
divided within itself, it commands itself, but 
does not obey itself, it has lost self-control — a 
striking instance of the divisive stage of the Ego. 

3. Such a deep inner scission contradicts the 
nature of the Ego, destroys its unity, which it must 
restore. Hence the frequent experience that after 
a desperate attempt to recall a matter, it comes 
back of itself, unbidden, when we are not think- 
ing of it. Spontaneously the Ego does what it 
refused to do through Will . It seems that the Ego 
does not like to be tyrannized over, even by itself. 
External arbitrary power even in the Ego leads 
to a kind of revolt, till the spontaneous element 
be restored. In this way Forgetfulness is over- 
come by the Ego itself through bringing back 
the activity which was suppressed. This is done 
of its own accord, without the conscious in- 
tervention of the Will. Herein lies the sugges- 
tion of the manner of mastering Forgetfulness, 
and of training the Memory. 

III. Mediate ^Seizure. The Ego now, instead 
of trying to remember by an immediate act of 
seizure and separation of the Image, employs a 
mediating method ; it takes some object which 



ME MOBY. 253 

recalls the Image desired. The voluntary Ego in 
Memory now co-operates with the spontaneous 
element, and unites both in one process of recall- 
ing. Thus we shall behold Forgetfulness over- 
come, not spontaneously as just before, but 
mediately through an act of Will. In this way 
the Ego restores unity to itself after its inner 
division in Forgetfulness. 

When we wish to remember the name of a 
person, we have often to recall first some object 
which we know to be associated with that name, 
and through this object recover the name. This 
is the Mediate Seizure of the Image, since it is 
not taken directly but through a mean or 
medium. Here we have the stage of unification 
in Volitional Memory, inasmuch as the Ego 
overcomes the separation from its object by a 
middle term, which, however, it seizes immedi- 
ately through an act of will. Thus, too, Asso- 
ciation plays in, since the movement from this 
middle term to the name is spontaneous, and the 
two kinds of Memory co-operate. Still the 
spontaneous element is invoked and controlled 
by the volitional, which is thereby the para- 
mount principle. 

The Ego wills to recall the Image, but cannot; 
the completed act of Memory is negated. Yet 
there is still some Memory, since the mind 
remembers that it has such a content, though it 
is unable to reach the same. Unless we remember 



254 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

that we have apperceived such an object, the 
Will could not act at all, we could not even try 
to call out what we do not know that we have 
called in. But the negation lies against the 
separation of the Image, not against its existence 
in the mind. We know that we once put the 
fish into the water, though we cannot now catch 
it. 

The Volitional Memorv having been foiled in 
its immediate act of seizing the Image, will 
accordingly proceed to seize immediately some- 
thing which will fetch back the Image. That 
is, Volition will now employ Association to 
detach What it seeks for. Hence the following 
stages. 

1. External Association, The Ego will bring 
up the spatial environment or the temporal rela- 
tion of the thing sought after. I see a face 
which I cannot designate ; I think where I saw 
it first, when, under what circumstances. I 
orient it first, then I grasp the name, and possi- 
bly the character of the person. Association by 
contiguity (in Space and Time) is the means 
employed. 

2. Qualitative Association. Not being able to 
recall the object, I grope for that which resembles 
it or forms a contrast with it. The name of a 
pupil which is difficult to remember, has some 
similarity to some familiar classic name which I 
can always recall ; I use the one to fish out the 



ME MOBY. 255 

other from the sea of oblivion, employing Asso- 
ciation by Resemblance, or possibly by Contrast. 

3. Total Association. Equally certain is it that 
the Ego employs such a mean for bringing back 
a series of objects which are spontaneously inte- 
grated. The cue or catch-word has this purpose. 
The Memory recalls through Will one thing in 
order to restore the whole of which that thing is 
a part. 

When the mean is found and the object or 
objects recalled, both together are united in the 
one act or process. The volitional element is 
still the paramount one, overarching and direct- 
ing the spontaneous or associative element. It 
has recovered not only the immediate object, 
but also associations of the object, and thereby 
has wrenched the latter from Forgetfulness. 

Yet not entirely. The Will may recall the 
mean, but Association may not respond to the 
mean. I see the face, and I may bring up envi- 
ronment and circumstances and resemblances, 
and I still may not recover the name or the per- 
sonal identity which I seek. Somehow I must 
give to the mean its associative power, my voli- 
tion must somehow reach over and control that. 
Such is the movement in the next stage 'of 
Memory. 

Bringing together the entire sweep of Volun- 
tary Memory we observe that it reveals the 
Psychosis as its inner process In the first place 



256 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Ego as Will seizes immediately the object to' 
be remembered. Secondly, the Ego divides 
within itself, both remembering and forgetting ; 
it forgets the name, but remembers that it has 
the name ; the Will gets a half, as it were, and 
loses a half. Thirdly, the Ego restores itself 
from its divided condition by a mediating term 
which recalls the object spontaneously, through 
Association. Thus the Ego has passed through 
its three stages, — immediate, separative, and 
unifying — in unfolding Voluntary Memory. 

But the Ego does not yet control the Mem- 
ory's spontaneous activity, which is determined 
from without, by Association. Accordingly the 
Ego proceeds to get hold of this still external 
element of memory and to reduce it to the sway 
of the Will by means of some kind of a system. 
Systematic Memory has as its object to put 
Association into the power of Volition, and is 
now to be unfolded. 

Ill Systematic Memory. 

The process of the Memory for completely 
vanquishing Forgetfulness gives rise to Systems 
of memorizing. The principle in such Systems 
is to make a certain series or totality of objects 
automatic, and this automatic total is put under 
the control of the Will. The object is recalled 
by the System, in which the spontaneous activity 
of Memory is subjected to Volition. 



ME MOBY. 257 

Already in Apperception we found that many 
single acts of Will repeated produce a chain of 
spontaneity. Now if we can interlink objects 
into such a chain, and put this chain under con- 
trol of the Will, we have organized a System of 
remembering which has three main points : the 
making automatic the series, the associating the 
object with the series, the voluntary act of Will 
which can call up the series. All Systems re- 
quire the Ego to be active in these three ways, 
whatever be their differences from one another. 

We have already found that Voluntary Memory 
runs upon its limit and breaks down in Forget- 
f ulness ; the Will from within cannot always 
get hold of the Image and wrest it from Apper- 
ception. So it invokes aid from without through 
the power of Association ; that is, it supplements 
its own defect with help from Spontaneous 
Memory. But Association also may refuse to 
act under the command of Volition. We may 
call up the name and bid it bring up the asso- 
ciated face, but the name may not obey. Thus 
the chasm between the volitional and the sponta- 
neous act is not completely bridged over in 
Voluntary Memory. Association does not obey 
at the start ; can it be made to obey? 

There begins a new process of routing Forget- 
fulness from its last stronghold. External Asso- 
ciation, which acts by chance, with more or less 
uncertainty on account of its externality, must 

17 



258 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

in some way be made internal and thereby sub- 
jected to the Ego. Thus the negative power of 
Forgetfulness in the present sphere is overcome, 
or i3 circumscribed in smaller limits than it other- 
wise would be. 

The essential fact of Memory is the recall of 
the Image, or of the ideated form of the past 
experience, act, or event, which must be sepa- 
rated from the Ego by the Ego. To recall is to 
bring past into present, and to make over the 
whole process of Ideation; Memory resurrects 
the vanished object and recreates it before us. 
Manifestly the Ego must reverse the previous 
movement of Apperception, and separate from 
itself what was then united with itself. The Esro 
may not be able thus to whirl about and to re- 
verse itself, at least not completely and immedi- 
ately ; it must have a mean, an instrument, a 
system for so doing. The historical event I can 
recall but not the date, which herein refuses to 
obey the order for recall. I therefore cast about 
to construct a mnemonical System, which inter- 
links the date into its procedure, and this pro- 
cedure is subordinated to the Will. 

The mnemonical System is, in general, con- 
structed by the Ego to overcome the defect of 
Memory, which defect is usually the failure of 
external Association to act when it is called 
upon. Accordingly this external Association 
must be made internal and put under the author- 



MEMOBY. 259 

ity of the Will. Such a System in its unfolding 
is seen to pass through three leading stages. 

I. The Ego spontaneously makes a mnemonical 
series, and integrates the object with the same. — 
The Natural System. 

II. The Ego, becoming conscious of such a 
System, makes it through an act of Will, employ- 
ing for such purpose Association. — The Arti- 
ficial System. 

III. The Ego, having found the Artificial Sys- 
tem external, takes itself and its own process as 
the basis of a System of Memory. — The Rational 
System. 

Thus the Ego, having traveled through various 
external Systems, and found them inadequate 
(though helpful, doubtless, in certain contingen- 
cies), comes back to itself as the center of a 
mnemonical System, with which it co-ordinates 
all the objects of its knowledge. 

In all forms of Systematic Memory the first 
thing is to make the automatic chain into which 
we are to link the object to be remembered. 
That is, we are to integrate the series, which is 
the basis of the System. Now this integration 
is essentially the work of Apperception. If 
we employ for our System a collection of words 
these words must be internalized, ordered, ap- 
perceived till they become a spontaneous totality, 
a great team of many spans of horses, to which 
we are to hitch our single object that we may 



260 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

draw it forth from Retention into Memory when- 
ever we wish. 

I. The Natural System, The integration of 
the mnemonical series is brought about by a 
number of repetitions which order and render 
permanent the System. In the Natural System 
such integration is spontaneous, not conscious at 
first, not intentional ; the Ego of itself constructs 
the series by the mere presence of the object or 
objects, which stimulates this integrating activity 
of the Ego. To be sure, the Will enters when I 
voluntarily put myself in the way of the objects 
so that my Ego may integrate them of its own 
accord; still such an activity of the Ego is 
spontaneous, and constructs the Natural System 
instinctively. 

Three phases of this kind of integration we 
may note here s corresponding to the stages of 
Redintegration in Apperception — Recurrence, 
Repetition, Habit. 

1. Recurrence or Involuntary Repetition. I 
may integrate a series of objects into a kind of 
System simply by seeing them often. I live in a 
certain street, I have to pass a row of houses, a 
group of trees, with statues, fountains, churches, 
and other constituents of a total scene. Every 
day I behold and associate these objects, so that 
they become a cycle, or a System, with which I 
integrate all similar objects, and by means of 
which I recover any object thus integrated. I 



MEMORY. 261 

have had no intention of making such a System, 
but it makes itself simply by the repetition of 
my walk. So during the whole of life we are 
unconsciously integrating these series of objects, 
events, scenes, and forming them into Systems, 
more or less interconnected. 

Here, however, we are to put stress upon the 
fact that the Ego cannot help making some kind 
of a mnemonical series out of its environment ; by 
its own nature it has to integrate recurring objects 
into a Natural System of Memory. 

2. Voluntary Repetition. In this the Recur- 
rence is brought about by my own volition. I 
repeat the scene with design, I go to see the 
objects again and again, till the whole is made 
into a System which works spontaneously. At 
first I had to repeat every thing through a 
special act of Will, finally, however, the exter- 
nal becomes internal, the conscious becomes 
unconscious, repetition does away with the need 
of itself through repetition. 

We have now integrated a series and have 
become aware of the fact ; we have found out 
that we can make our System, and hence can 
select that which is best for the same ; we can 
take it out of the realm of chance or caprice. 
From the Systems forming spontaneously 
through mere Recurrence we can choose, but 
such a choice involves a standard of comparison 
which we may not yet possess. 



262 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Note, therefore, that such a System is still a 
Natural System, the immediate work of the Ego 
integrating the immediate object. My Will sim- 
ply brings me into the presence of the objects, 
which stimulate my Ego to spontaneous activity. 

3. Habit. We have already seen that the 
many separate acts of intentional Eepetition must 
become one, that is, they must finally be auto- 
matic. Kepeated Repetition brings forth Habit, 
or spontaneous energy in the given direction. 
The Ego must unify all these repeated differ- 
ences, making them over into a single act; the 
Ego is simply asserting its own unity in uniting 
these separate repetitions. 

We have now before us the idea of Systematic 
Memory, or remembrance through a System. 
We have already seen that the Ego naturally 
makes such a System or integrated series through 
Apperception. Memory employs this integrated 
series to recall the object which it seeks. 

When the Ego through Habit has redintegrated 
the mnemonical series till it works spontaneously 
under the control of the Will, the Natural System 
passes over into the Artificial System. 

II. The Artificial System. The Ego has 
become conscious that it makes of its accord a 
System of memorizing. Every day it integrates 
a smaller or greater series of objects, which 
series becomes a means of recalling things 
linked into itself. The Natural System is made 



ME MOBY. 263 

spontaneously, without preconceived design. 
But now the design is preconceived, and the 
question arises, Can we make a System in ad- 
vance, and adjust the act of recalling to the 
same? The answer is, we can do so, and thus 
we produce the Artificial System in contrast 
with the Natural System, which has just been 
presented. 

We found that the Ego through Eepetition 
and Habit could get such complete possession of 
a mnemonical series that the latter would work 
spontaneously under control of Volition. That 
is, an act of will can start the series, which then 
goes of itself- Objects associated with this series 
are recalled by it, while it in turn is subject to 
the Will of the person recalling. Thus the 
object is put under the control of the Ego, and 
is recalled at will. 

Every such Artificial System chooses before- 
hand some connected order of objects which 
must itself be integrated and made automatic as 
the basis of memorizing. Having mastered this 
given order the memorizer is to connect the 
object with the same in some form of Associa- 
tion — contiguity, resemblance, cause, etc.; then 
the System brings back the object when wanted. 
The word mnemonics is usually applied to Arti- 
ficial Systems of Memory. 

Now it is apparent that every form of Inte- 
gration (or Association) can be made the basis 



264 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of mnemonical Systems, which may hence be 
classified according to the kinds of Association 
as follows : — 

1. The Mechanical S} 7 stem comes first, which 
is a series of spatial Integrations ; into these the 
object to be remembered is spatially linked. 
A system of geometrical figures, as squares or 
triangles, has been employed ; these are divided 
into smaller parts and the objects are associated 
with these parts. A more extensive system is a 
house with its rooms, each of which has four 
walls, floor and ceiling; each of these is sub- 
divided into nine squares, and each square has 
its associated object. 

Thus Memory is aided by a system of localiza- 
tion in Space. Succession in Time might be used 
in a similar manner. 

In fact, contiguity in Space and Time easily 
fuses both elements. Of such a mnemonical 
System one may justly affirm that it requires as 
much effort to learn it as to memorize the original 
object. Still if the Memory is utterly helpless, 
it may give some aid. 

2. The Qualitative System, which System is 
next in the order of Association, is based upon 
Kesemblance and Contrast. There must be an 
integrated series of similar objects with which the 
object to be remembered is united. Similarity 
of sound in particular has been applied to the 
learning of foreign languages. For instance, in 



ME MOBY. 265 

French the forgetful student wishes to remember 
that Maison means house; he may integrate the 
two into a mnemonical synthesis as follows : 
Maison, mason, wall, house. Maison resembles 
mason in sound, the mason's product is the wall, 
and the wall belongs to the house. Here resem- 
blance makes the main link, the rest follow. 
Again : Livre, leaf, book. Probably wit, and 
certainly punning can be marvelously developed 
by practicing a system of connecting things by 
Resemblance and Contrast. The play of hidden 
Association has an unlimited range. A mnemonic 
genius has thus connected pen and nose: pen — 
penwiper — handkerchief — nose. A lively fancy 
is a valuable helpmeet in this System of Memory. 
3. Already there have been indications of an 
Essential System. Take the causal connection 
which is often found interlinking objects in both 
the mechanical and the qualitative series. For 
instance, in the previous example, the mason 
suggests the house which is the product of his 
labor ; the cause carries the mind over into the 
effect. The leaf calls up the book which is the 
totality of leaves; the part recalls the whole. 
Still further, the appearance recalls the essence, 
the outer the inner, the created the creator. The 
deeper fact is always rising to the surface and 
making itself either a link in the series, or the 
basis of it. After recalling through external 
Resemblance or Contiguity, the Artificial System 



266 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of Memory falls back upon the causal or the 
genetic connection of objects, which shows their 
true inner nature. We may associate two pic- 
tures spatially by the places in which we saw 
them, or qualitatively by their coloring or style 
of drawing; or we may associate them creatively 
by the ideas which called them into being. A gen- 
etic System of Memory is the truest and deepest, 
since it recalls objects through their integration 
in a genetic series. 

The mechanical and the qualitative series 
undoubtedly furnish the groundwork for quite 
all the popular Systems of Mnemonics based as 
they are upon Association. Kealiy, however, 
they are only an external help to start the self- 
activity of the Ego, a prod used to stir up the 
true Memory, which is ultimately to connect 
and to recall objects genetically, that is, through 
the thoughts or ideas which create them. 

Herewith the distinctive activity of the Arti- 
ficial System of Memory has come to an end. It 
was constructed by the Ego as a kind of mech- 
anism for recalling the object at will. But the 
Ego has found that ultimately it has to connect 
and recall the object, not through any external 
relation, be it mechanical, or qualitative, or even 
causal ; the essential relation is the final matter 
to be remembered, which, however, can only be 
grasped by the thinking Ego in its creative 
energy. The Ego is at last to integrate and to 



MEMOBT. 267 

recall the object through the thought of it, which 
is its primal creative principle, its essence ; this 
is what the Ego is to recognize and to take up 
into its ultimate mnemonical series. 

We may find an example in the matter nearest 
at hand. How shall we remember Memory? 
By recalling the place on the printed page of the 
book where we first saw it defined? Or by 
recalling the formula of words in which the 
definition was stated? Or shall we henceforth 
remember Memory genetically, as evolving itself 
out of Sense-perception, through the creative 
activity of the Ego? The Psychosis is the 
ultimate mnemonical series, which is to integrate 
every object that can be known and remembered, 
thus it (the object) is both cognized and recalled 
through its essence, through that which generates 
it. 

Still, Artificial Systems of Memory have their 
place and their utility, there is no intention of 
denying their value within certain limits, but 
they are not the final principle of memorizing. 
Their tendency is, moreover, to produce an arti- 
ficial, yea mechanical Memory, which m.&y make 
the whole mind superficial and become thought- 
destroying. The so-called memory-cram, be it 
done directly or through a system, deserves a 
large share of its bad reputation. This, how- 
ever, is not saying that there should be no 



268 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

III. The Hational System. This has been 
already indicated in a general way. The Arti- 
ficial System seeks to get complete possession of 
the object by freeing it from the uncertainty of 
external Association, which is made internal 
and thereby controlled by the Ego. Thus it is 
that every form of the Artificial System at last 
leads back to the Ego as its creative principle, 
for the Ego is what produces the automatic 
mnemonical series for recalling the object. But 
the Ego has its own creative principle, or is in 
fact just the principle of creation in itself, being 
the Psychosis, the self-active process of the Self. 
This process of the Ego, as already intimated, 
is the ultimate mnemonical series, which is 
finally to integrate and to recall every object. 
We may name it the Rational or Recognitive 
System of Memory, since the Ego must now 
recognize the object as itself, identifying the 
same with itself, and then recalling the same 
through such recognition. 

Having come back to the Ego again as the 
center, we may glance at it in the light of a 
System of Memory. 

1. Every man, has to a greater or less extent, 
his own mnemonical System, into which he 
integrates and through which he remembers 
experiences, thoughts, facts, principles. Every 
Ego has its own inner central idea, which is its 
very nature, its view of the world ( Welt- 



ME MOBY. 269 

anscliauung), which it makes the core round 
which it gathers its feelings, its activity, its 
knowledge. Already we have observed in the 
Natural System of Memory that the mind cannot 
help making its mnemonical series out of its 
environment of objects. The Ego according to 
its bent and culture constructs such a series 
iustinctively. 

2. Hence results the great difference in the 
manner and content of Memory, since the Egos 
are so different. An evolutionist like Darwin has 
in his science an inner principle of mnemonics 
which has been developed into consummate alert- 
ness by his reading and observation ; he will 
apperceive and remember everything which per- 
tains to his subject and let the rest go. The 
historian like Grote gets to having a mnemon- 
ical system in his mind which can chiefly grasp, 
store up, and recall the historic fact. The phi- 
lologer will remember the words and often noth- 
ing else. What a wonderful diversity among 
scholars in reading, say Herodotus? One sees 
the mythology, another the geography, another 
the history, another the dialect, etc. The voca- 
tion constructs a mnemonical System for most 
people, which often becomes a limit to Memory, 
quite as much as an aid. Thus mnemonical 
Systems vary according to the grand diversity 
of Egos, each with its own innate tendency, 
acquired knowledge, and special vocation. 



270 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

3. Still they all have a common principle, 
every Ego must not only remember but mnemon- 
ize, employing some form of integration whereby 
objects are not only retained but recalled. As 
we have seen, every System of Memory comes 
back to the Ego, to its inner creative process 
which has constructed these various mnemonical 
Systems out of itself for its own behoof. It 
must get control of the Image and be able to 
bring Past into Present at will. This being done, 
Memory has reached its destination ; the Ego 
through its own activity, through its own Sys- 
tem, which is the process of itself, can restore 
the Image at pleasure. 

Systematic Memory has now gone through its 
three stages, which we have designated as the 
Natural, the Artificial and the Rational Systems. 
These are seen to manifest the Psychosis, the 
first being the immediate act of the Ego in con- 
structing a mnemonical System, the second being 
a consciously purposed act of the Ego in con- 
structing a System more or less external to itself, 
the third showing a return of the Ego out of 
difference to its own process as its ultimate Sys- 
tem of Memory. Such is the final getting pos- 
session of the Image by the Ego, namely, through 
the System of its own Self. 

Having thus completed Systematic Memory, 
we may cast a glance back at the total movement 
of Memory, which in its triplicity is also a man- 



ME MOBY. 271 

ifestation of the Psychosis. First the Ego sep- 
arates the Image immediately, spontaneously, 
stimulated from without to the act; secondly, 
the Ego separates the Image intentionally, 
determined from within, but is thwarted (ne- 
gated) by Forgetfulness; thirdly the Ego con- 
structs the System of Memory to thwart For- 
getfulness in turn (to negate the negation), and 
thereby to recover the Image and to recall the 
same at will, through itself. 

What is now the situation after the Ego inte- 
grates the object and recalls the Image through its 
own process? The Ego has become conscious of 
its mastery over the Image, and knows the same 
as its own ; it has re-created the Image and made 
the same over into an element of its own creative 
activity. The Ego is now aware that it can trans- 
form the Image quite as it pleases. Accordingly 
it will proceed to the transformation of the Image 
into the Symbol, in which the Image ( or the 
external object which it represents) is endowed 
with a new meaning by the Ego alongside or in 
place of its natural meaning. Thus the Meaning 
of the Image begins to rise into prominence in 
distinction from its Form. 

Throughout Memory the Ego preserved the 
Image as the true copy of the sensuous object, 
which is to be recalled in its reality. But the 
Ego finding at last that this copy is its own crea- 
tion, begins to employ the same for its own pur- 



272 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

pose, especially for its own self-expression. The 
Image thus begins to be filled with a fresh inner 
significance derived from the Ego and shows the 
transmutation into the Symbol. 

Therewith, however, we have made a very im- 
portant transition, having moved out of the first 
stage of Representation into the second. We 
have passed from the Image as Copy to the Image 
as Symbol, the latter showing a fresh division 
with a new Meaning in the Form ; we have also 
passed from a Copy-reproducing to a Symbol- 
creating activity of the Ego — from Memory to 
Imagination. 

General Observations on Memory. 

1. The relation of Memory to the brain, the 
body, and specially the nervous system, has been 
investigated a good deal in recent years. It is 
generally held that every sensation produces a 
permanent modification of the substance of the 
brain, that this modification lapses into a kind 
of suspension, till an act of Memory revives it 
and furrows the old channel afresh. This, of 
course, explains nothing, for the problem still 
remains, and we ask whence comes this fur- 
rowing act of Memory, which is just the matter 
which we wish to know about. How do the 
collection and collocation of brain cells produce 
Memory? In order to meet this difficulty, it 
has been supposed that every brain cell has a 



MEMOBY. 273 

Memory of its own. Still Memory is just the 
thing taken for granted in this explanation of 
Memory. It must be affirmed that Memory can 
be rightly understood only by unfolding it genet- 
ically out of the process of the Ego. 

2. Many of the popular designations of Mem- 
ory serve a good purpose in a rhetorical way, if 
not applied too exactingly. There is the ready 
Memory which makes the separation of the 
Image from its apperceptive condition with ease 
and speed ; the retentive or tenacious Memory, 
which of course suggests Retention ; circum- 
stantial Memory which excels in calling up 
details and examples ; logical Memory whose 
field is argument and connection in thought. 
Every mental activity has its corresponding 
designation in Memory inasmuch as it may 
become the content of Memory. 

Old and young have different kinds of Mem- 
ory, whose dependence upon bodily condition is 
pronounced. Disease makes inroads upon the 
Memory in various ways; injury to the brain 
may destroy it for a time or forever; fever or 
delirium can rouse it to a preternatural activity. 
The case of the ignorant serving-girl, who in her 
illness talked a number of learned languages, 
which she of course did not know when she was 
in a normal state of health, is a classic instance 
contributed by Coleridge. Many people, as they 
grow older, lose a certain spontaneity of Memory ; 

1* 



274 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

especially is the power of recalling proper names 
affected. It is well-known that there are caprices 
of Memory, varying with the time of day and 
the time of year. 

There is little doubt that Memory, on the other 
hand, is the most docile, tractable, and teachable 
of the faculties of mind. The old man can still 
train himself to remember particulars, and the 
negligent young fellow can become, through self- 
discipline, a marvel of thoughtfulness. Memory 
also contributes its share to character ; care, love, 
duty show their reflection in Memory. 

3. Miracles of Memory are of frequent record 
in the past. Celebrated is the case of the Corsican, 
Giulio Calvi, " who could repeat 36,000 names 
after once hearing them," and who is said to 
have had " an art of Memory " which he taught 
to others. All readers admire Sir William 
Hamilton's Memory for philosophical opinions, 
though they may not think much of his philos- 
ophy. Blind Tom, the African musical prodigy, 
had a marvelous memory for musical sounds, 
being able to play a long and intricate composi- 
tion, such as a sonata, on hearing it a single 
time. Berlioz was famous for his ability in 
recalling orchestral tone-color. 

The question has been often raised whether 
Memory can be so strong as to jeopardize orig- 
inality. Undoubtedly many men of ability have 
had good memories. But are they not the 



MEMOEY. 275 

exception? It seems quite certain that Memory 
has often the tendency to usurp the place of 
Thought, which is the creative activity of mind. 
Learned men are, in the main, the victims of 
Memory, being chiefly the rememberers of things 
past and gone, which quality they often deem 
the supreme excellence. The vanity of erudi- 
tion bases itself upon the rule and exaltation of 
Memory, which is a good servant but a bad 
master. As we have above seen, that form of 
Memory is most valuable which is readiest in the 
service of Thought, and recalls objects through 
their genetic relation. 

The largest nation on the globe, the Chinese, is 
celebrated for its cultivation of Memory, which 
is often declared to stunt its natural growth, 
and to crystallize it in the forms of the Past. 
The Chinese precept is to remember, not to 
think; to imitate, not to create; such is, at 
least, the charge which the Occident levels at 
Chinese education. Yet the counterpart of 
such education should be stated : China has 
preserved itself by keeping alive the Memory 
of itself, it has more completely vanquished 
Time through Memory than the Occidental peo- 
ples, whose history is a record of their successive 
evanishment in Time. China was in existence 
before the Pharaohs, and it still exists in full 
national life, notwithstanding reverses. By 
Memory it trains itself to preserve the Past in 



276 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Present, and thus persists through Time. 
So much has the Chinese human being done 
with himself on this earth; whether it is the 
best that man can do with himself, is another 
question. 

Undoubtedly the exclusive cultivation or use 
of Memory has a negative aspect in two direc- 
tions: it can lame Thought above, and Sense- 
perception below; the man sunk in Memory is 
apt not to see fully the object before him, nor 
does he think it adequately. 

4. Many metaphors are applied to Memory, 
some of which may become misleading. It is 
often called the store-house of the mind {thesau- 
rus omnium rerum is Cicero's phrase), or the 
deep dark mine in which the treasures of the 
Past are laid away. It is to be observed that 
such similitudes do not touch the essence of 
Memory as such ; they refer mainly to Retention 
and Apperception, and leave out the facts of re- 
calling and recognizing, which are the chief ones 
in the present case. At most the store-house 
is the possibility of Memory, not the real act 
thereof, which must be grasped ultimately as the 
Psychosis. Still, for the purpose of expressing 
the element of Retention, such metaphors may 
be employed, but the reader must not apply them 
in the wrong way. No psychologist succeeds in 
eschewing them altogether, even if he be a rabid 
precisian. 



MEMORY. 277 

5. The student is urged to consider carefully 
the relation of Apperception, Memory and Asso- 
ciation to one another, as set forth in the pre- 
ceding exposition. According to our experience, 
they are apt to get more or less tangled in the 
minds of students, and we are compelled to add, 
in the minds of writers of text-books. Apper- 
ception is an integration essentially, while 
Memory is a separation essentially ; each is the 
opposite of the other, yet each is necessary 
to the other, and both form ultimately one 
process. 

We have tried to draw the limits of Associa- 
tion, which has its place in Apperception as well 
as in Memory, and which also has its necessary 
counterpart in Dissociation. 

The attempt to reduce the so-called Laws of 
Association to one fundamental Law has been 
made by a number of psychologists, among 
whom Hamilton is specially to be mentioned. 
With them the principle of abstract identity is 
paramount. Other psychologists have insisted 
upon reducing the Laws of Association to two ; 
thus they rest in the dualism of mind. 

The truth is, however, that the fundamental 
principle of Association is not to be reduced to 
one or two Laws, but is to be found in the pro- 
cess of the Ego which has both unity and duality, 
both identity and difference, in the living move- 
ment of itself. It is certain that the Ego makes 



278 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Law, and then can change it and make it 
over. No external Law can bind forever the 
Ego, whose essence is to be self-legislative ; it 
makes its own Law and this self-making Law 
is ultimately the process of itself. That is', 
Association is finally to be referred to the 
Psychosis. 

6. The power of volition in Memory (and also 
elsewhere) is measured by the degree and quan- 
tity of spontaneous energy it can call forth. The 
single act of will is to set a train of repetitions 
going which gets to be involuntary. The one 
resolution may clothe itself in a life of deeds. 
Very important intellectually and morally is the 
transformation of the Intentional into the Spon- 
taneous, of conscious effort into unconscious 
ease. I start to learn a language, I have to 
repeat often each of its forms and words by a 
separate act of will, till the many intended repe- 
titions become one spontaneous energy ; then I 
can read and hear its vocables without a special 
struggle after their meaning, for meaning and 
utterance have become a single instinctive act. 
Still further, I set about learning a new language 
in itself quite as difficult, but I master it far 
more easily than I did the previous one, as I have 
acquired and made spontaneous the system of 
learning a language in the first instance. I still 
have to perform the work of repeating words and 
many details, but they are now instinctively 



ME MOBY, 279 

ordered by the one principle, the manifold acts 
move easily on lines already in the mind. 

So in study generally. The Memory is aided 
beyond calculation by the spontaneous order re- 
sulting from previous effort ; if every act of learn- 
ing has to be always an absolute act of will, pro- 
gress will be indeed slow and painful. A very 
important question of instruction is, How much 
spontaneous energy can one volitional effort be 
made to call forth? Will-power does not show 
itself immediately so much as mediately, by the 
amount of power unwilled (or spontaneous) which 
it can start and direct. 

7. The Ego has now mastered the act of 
separating the image from Apperception — which 
is the essential problem of Memory. The con- 
trol of the Image has been obtained which the 
Ego can recall through its own internal act. 
Still this Image is as yet but the copy, the direct 
copy of the sensuous object. The Ego, how- 
ever, rules it as master, knows it as its own 
creature, having made the same as the inner 
reflex of the external object. The whole move- 
ment of Memory has been this gradual acquisi- 
tion of mastery over the Image, that it appear 
when ordered and act under command. 

There remains, however, an element in the 
Image which is alien and refractory to the Ego ; 
it still persists in being the picture of the outer 
world, though this picture be controlled in its 



280 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

movements by the Ego. But the latter will not 
endure such alienation, it begins to transform 
the Image from being a likeness of the object 
into being a likeness of itself, from reflecting 
the outer world to reflecting the inner world. 
That is, the Ego has started the great act of 
Symbolization. 



SE C TION SE C OND.— IMA GIN A TION. 

In Imagination the Ego not only reproduces 
the external Image, but reproduces it with a new, 
internal meaning derived from itself (the Ego). 
Thus it is that the meaning begins to rise into 
prominence and to introduce a fresh separation, 
which we call the separation of the Image into 
Meaning and Form. In the sphere of Imagina- 
tion this separation will remain, and will consti- 
tute its distinctive characteristic. Still we shall 
have here too the total process of the Ego, and 
the Imagination will reveal the Psychosis. 

Moreover, we need a special term for the Image 
in the present sphere, in which it is divided 
within itself into Meaning and Form, and is 
being wrought over into a reflection of the Ego. 
The Image we shall now name the Symbol. 
This is a somewhat wider usage of the word than 

(281) 



282 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

' the usual one, but the student will get accus- 
tomed to it with little difficulty, we think. 

In the preceding activity, which is Memory, 
the Ego has to do with the Image as copy of the 
Percept, in which copy Form and Meaning 
remain in immediate unity. But now the Image 
is separated within itself, the Meaning is tam- 
pered with, the Ego begins to put its own Mean- 
ing into the sensuous Form. The Image is no 
longer simply a true copy of nature, but starts 
to being a copy of mind, or an expression 
thereof. Mind, the Ego, begins to transform the 

f object, in fact the whole external world, into a 
reflection of itself. Still both sides, Form and 
Meaning, will remain throughout the sphere of 
the Imagination, making a picture diversely put 
together, a kind of compound photograph. 

Tracing the course of the object hitherto, we 
find that in Sense-perception, it was internalized 
and became the implicit Image; in Representa- 
tion this Image becomes explicit generally, while 
in Memory it was separated as copy and identi- 
fied with its object. But Imagination is going to 
change the Image both internally and externally, 
both as to Meaning and Form, and produce the 
Symbol. 

Herewith the Ego begins to image itself, 
mind cannot stop till it pictures mind, since its 
very nature is to be self-seeing, self-knowing. 
In Consciousness, we observed the Ego dividing 



• IMA GIN A TION. 283 

itself within itself and holding itself up before 
itself. The alien copy of external nature is now 
to undergo a transformation till the Ego can see 
itself, see its own meaning in the Image. Pre- 
viously the Ego has been chiefly a mirror of the 
outside world, and the Image has been a true 
likeness of the object. But the Ego is more 
than the simple mirror, it in its innermost essence 
is also the thing mirrored; it is not only the 
reflecting subject, but also the reflected object; 
nay, it is both the reflector and the reflected in 
one, it is subject-object. Thus the Imagination 
will manifest the Psychosis, or the total move- 
ment of the Ego. 

Still this imaginative sphere of the Ego has 
its distinctive characteristic which is, in general, 
the separation of the Image into Form and 
Meaning, and the process of overcoming more 
and more that separation. The Imagination, 
therefore, shows as its special phase the second 
stage of the Ego, that of difference, separation, 
division, since the Image divides within itself, 
has an inner Meaning to its outer Form, and thus 
becomes Symbol. 

The Symbol, on the whole, has been the 
mightiest means for training the race out of the 
condition of nature into that of spirit. It is the 
connecting link between the material world and 
mind, it is the bridge which the Ego constructs 
in order to pass out of the sense-world into the 



284 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

supersensible. Symbolization transforms the 
physical object into the bearer of intelligence; 
the soul of man must symbolize or die in the 
bud. Its earliest objective expression is a Sym- 
bol, language is a Symbol, art is a Symbol. The 
Ego creates a symbolic world for self-utterance 
and for intercommunication ; human society would 
be impossible without Symbols. 

We shall, therefore, try to organize this sym- 
bolic world which envirous us on all sides, and 
whose mastery is the chief end of education. 
We shall note that it bears everywhere the im- 
press of the Ego which created it, and that there- 
in the Ego is seeking more fully to express itself 
in order to come to a higher self-consciousness. 

The Symbol may be considered as an interpre- 
tation of the thing of nature into spirit. As 
already indicated it has two sides or parts — 
Form and Meaning or a Nature-part and an 
Ego-part ; it starts with the physical object and 
elaborates and refines the same more and more, 
that this object become the adequate reflex of 
mind. The two sides are always present in this 
process of the Imagination, which is not merely 
the Ego as imaging the object but as self-imaging 
in the object. Still the object never wholly falls 
away, though getting more and more internalized, 
drawn more and more toward the Ego, becoming 
more and more ideal. 

Here lies the reason why the Imagination is 



IMAGINATION. 285 

often called creative. It does not merely repro- 
duce the copy of the object like Memory, but 
moulds the object over and puts new meaning 
into it. Thus it often creates the object afresh, 
and, when not created afresh, the object has a 
fresh significance. 

The process of the Imagination will keep up 
the dualism between Form and Meaning, and will 
show the Meaning gradually usurping the Form 
and reducing it almost to a nullity. 

The Form is here the external element, the 
object or its image, and it may be said to have 
two meanings in the Symbol. The first meaning 
is the physical one, the second is its mental 
counterpart. For instance, if I see an image of 
a fox, does it mean the animal literally, or its 
well- known cunning? The latter makes the 
image a Symbol, the former is simply a copy of 
an external object. The same ambiguity exists 
in language. If I say, "I cannot grasp it," 
what do I mean? A grasping with the hand, the 
nature-meaning? Or a grasping with the mind, 
the spirit-meaning? Grasping a physical object 
or grasping a thought? 

The ambiguity of the Symbol is, therefore, a 
real matter and lies in the very nature of it, 
which is double. To be sure, this twofoldness 
of the Symbol goes back to the Ego itself, which, 
in the sphere of Imagination, is seeking to make 
the outer object the bearer of the inner thought, 



286 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

and shows all the gradations between the two 
extremes. 

The interplay between Form and Meaning will 
characterize the whole movement of Imagination, 
which will show three stages, corresponding to 
those of the Ego, which is, of course, the active 
principle. In the first place, the Ego will make 
a Form which has a single meaning, that of the 
natural object from which it is derived — the 
Nature-symbol. In the second place, the Ego 
will make a Form which has a double Meaning, 
that of Nature and that of Spirit, twofold yet 
united and related — the Art-symbol. In the 
third place, the Ego will make a Form which 
again has but a single Meaning, that of the 
Spirit, though still in the external object — the 
Thought-symbol. It is manifest that the Ego, 
in these kinds of Symbols — the Nature-symbol, 
the Art-symbol, and the Thought-symbol — 
moves through its three stages, immediate, 
divisive, and unitary, and that the Imagination, 
the symbol-making power, has, as the soul of its 
activity, the Psychosis. 

These three stages of Imagination will be desig- 
nated in the succeeding exposition as follows: — 

I. The Natural or Implicit Symbol, in which 
the Form has a Meaning still sunk in nature, and 
in which the spirit is as yet undeveloped, though 
at work. The stage of immediate unity between 
Form and Meaning. 



IMAGINATION. 287 

II. The Artistic or Explicit Symbol, in which 
Form and Meaning are unfolded into difference ; 
two Meanings (and sometimes more), show 
themselves — the Meaning of nature and the 
Meaning of spirit ; between these two is a kind 
of struggle for supremacy, with final victory for 
spirit, though the physical side with its sugges- 
tion is still retained. This movement of the 
Symbol is essentially one with the development 
of Art in the world, from Orient to Occident. 

III. The Rational or Completed Symbol, in 
which the Ego takes possession of the Form, 
banishes wholly the physical Meaning, and 
installs its own Meaning in the same. The Sym- 
bol is now Sign, and the Ego sees itself fully 
therein. The rise of the Sign-world. 

Thus Imagination is, in general, the symbol- 
making activity of mind, which statement covers 
a vast field, not simply poetry and art, but every 
department in which the Ego symbolizes the ob- 
ject, that is, makes the object the bearer of its 
meaning. Thus the Ego begins to make itself 
objective, by transforming the natural into the 
symbolic world. In this latter world it beholds 
a picture of itself, the reflection from the image 
is its own visage. This is not yet the Ego be- 
holding itself purely, as Thought; there is still in 
the Symbol and even in the Sign an alien ele- 
ment, which prevents the perfect recognition of 
spirit by spirit. Still the Symbol is a great aid 



288 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

up to a certain point; education, art, and also 
religion call it to their assistance. It constitutes 
a most important turning-point in the unfolding 
of the intellect, which has hitherto chiefly sought 
to internalize the external world in Sense-percep- 
tion and to get control of the same in Memoiy. 
But in Imagination the opposite movement starts, 
the Ego seeks to externalize the internal world 
through the Symbol. 

I. The Natural or Implicit Symbol. 

In this stage of Symbolism the mind is still 
sunk in Nature, though it sends forth flashes of 
itself through its material wrappage ; the dis- 
tinction between Form and Meaning is not yet 
made real, though it be potentially present; the 
physical object overshadows the element of the 
Ego, which is as yet savage, infantile, or unde- 
veloped, but which nevertheless produces its 
Symbol, must produce its Symbol if it be Ego. 

This stage might also be named the Symbolism 
of the Human Body, which shows the Ego giving 
the most immediate utterance of itself in a cor- 
poreal movement. The child specially is full of 
this kind of Symbolism, having indeed no other 
expression at first ; child-study, when it begins 
to transcend its narrow physiological limits, will 
be a study of child-symbolism. Still the grown 
person never gets rid of his body and its 



IMAGINATION. 289 

symbolic utterance, till he be laid with his 
fathers. 

The Symbolism of the Body or the Natural 
Symbol we shall designate in three different 
phases, in which the student can detect the 
ordering Ego. 

I. The immediate movement of the body is 
itself the Symbol, It has long been recognized 
that the spontaneous gestures of the human 
organism have a meaning, which can be developed 
in manifold ways. The oratorical, histrionic, 
and mimetic arts depend primarily upon bodily 
Symbolism. Education in recent times has 
seized upon the Natural Symbol both for com- 
prehending and training the child. If you 
throw the infant up into the air and catch it in 
your arms, you will notice its wriggling and 
resistance as it falls. What is the meaning of 
such bodily struggle ? It is a Natural Symbol by 
which the child is expressing itself, and which 
you are to read understandingly. Froebel has 
employed just this Natural Symbol as the first 
play of the mother with her child in his Mutter- 
und-Kose Lieder, which book has many other 
instances of the educative use of this kind of 
Symbol. 

II. The immediate movement of the body pro- 
duces a Symbol which it separates from itself and 
throws into Time through the voice. The vocal 
sound is a more internal expression than the 

19 



290 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

gesture, yet on the other hand it reaches beyond 
the bodily periphery, and communicates with a 
new sense, that of hearing. The Ego will take 
the sound of the voice and elaborate it into lan- 
guage, which we shall hereafter find to be the 
most complete form of Symbolism. At present, 
however, we only wish to observe that the body 
by means of the voice produces a Natural Sym- 
bol, which is the raw material of the Artistic as 
well of the Kational Symbol. The Ego will find 
in the billowy undulations of the voice with its 
movement in Time the most plastic medium for 
creating the Symbol and bringing it to its highest 
perfection. 

III. The immediate movement of the body 
produces a Symbol which it separates from itself 
and throws into Space by means of the picture. 
The separation of the spatially fixed picture from 
the body is more complete than the temporally 
vanishing sound ; yet both the body and the pic- 
ture are spatial objects and therein are alike ; the 
body has, so to speak, produced a body, wholly 
different, yet also one with itself, while the sound 
of the voice vanishes, has in it the negative. So 
much for the Psychosis in this sphere. 

Now the Ego, in making the object, makes it- 
self object; in making the picture, it is really 
picturing itself. The child imitates the thing of 
nature, projects it into some form of externality, 
and therein seeks to create it anew. The picture 



IMAGINATION. 291 

of the tree means the actual object, but is not the 
actual object; the child has begun to put Mean- 
ing into the Form, that is, has begun to symbo- 
lize in making the picture of a tree. 

Let us further illustrate this matter. The 
child bears in its mind the image of a dog derived 
from the sensuous object which it has seen. It 
separates the image from the Ego and makes a 
picture of the same by drawing it in rude out- 
lines. The child must do so, must externalize 
this internal image ; it would not be an Ego un- 
less it made a picture of what it has seen, since 
the Ego is just this separation and reproduction. 

Such a picture is the child's first Symbol, or 
one of the first. The picture stands for the 
dog, yet for more, namely, for the activity of 
the child's Ego, which has therein made itself 
object. It is well to look into the significance of 
the process. The picture is the child's own, and 
is a form which has this meaning: the Ego has 
begun to separate Form from Meaning, that is, 
to separate an image of a dog from a real dog, 
and to project the image into the world as its 
own product. Such is the process of the early 
Symbol which has an important bearing on the 
education of children, who ought not to be pun- 
ished for making pictures but to be guided 
therein, else they will put them in wrong places, 
and probably break out into making bad pic- 
tures. Picture-making is inherent, innate, we 



292 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

say, and can be turned to account in training or 
be allowed to run to wild excess. The child 
must make pictures as well as play ; picture- 
making is a means of self-expression and is a 
phase of the limit-transcending nature of all 
mind. 

Let us trace more fully the psychological 
movement of the child's mind in its process with 
the picture. 

1. The child sees a picture of the dog. There 
is no doubt that this is a phenomenon which it 
feels it must master. (1) At first it is so sunk 
in the object that it does not distinguish the 
picture from the real dog. It shows in a num- 
ber of ways that it expects the picture to move, 
to run, to bark. But nothing of the kind takes 
place, and so the child reaches another important 
stage. (2) It separates the living thing from 
the picture of the same. It discriminates the 
real object from any copy, and transcends its 
first delusion. The image of the dog no longer 
deludes it into a false belief ; one of the shows 
of the world it has seen through. Still it cannot 
fully make the separation for a long period ; it 
is afraid of the mask though it has seen the per- 
son put on the mask, and in playing an animal 
(horse for instance), it seems quite to believe 
for the time being that it is an actual horse. 
(3) It recognizes a little world of pictures dis- 
tinct from the reality, and orders the same 



IMAGINATION. 293 

through its incipient Apperception ; the one 
experience helps correlate further experiences. 
The child has begun, in general, to distinguish 
appearance from reality, or the actual thing from 
its imaged counterpart. 

2. The child sees a person making a picture of 
a dog. This act, too, excites its wonder and 
gives rise to a movement of its infantile mind. 
(1) At first the child is sunk in the motion of 
the person and the result which is so marvelous, 
namely, the person becoming a picture of a dog, 
and therein calling forth a new object by an act 
of creation. The child fuses the Ego of the 
maker with the thing made, till the former ceases 
his action and the picture stands by itself. Then 
the separation is suggested. (2) The child dis- 
tinguishes the Ego of the maker from the picture, 
which in a wonderful way has been thrown out 
into the world and made visible ; the act of 
separating the image from its invisible source 
has been shown to it so that it easily moves to 
the next stage, which is an apperception. (3) 
The child recognizes the Ego as picture-maker in 
general. The person who made the former 
picture repeats the process, and shows himself 
the possibility of many pictures, nay, of all. 

The child will ask for many repetitions, inas- 
much as it is reaching out beyond the single per- 
cept, and is apperceiving the Ego as picture-maker, 
which fact gives it unbounded pleasure, since it 



294 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

is transcending its own limits therein and assert- 
ing its freedom. 

3. The child makes a picture of the dog. It 
has already seen the Ego as picture-maker, and 
will follow on the same line. A double imitation 
may be noticed here : the child imitates the form 
of the object, and makes the picture as like to 
the original as possible; also it imitates the Ego 
of the previous maker and his actions. 
The first imitation is the attempt to know 
the dog by creating it over again, by mak- 
ing its outward shape; the second imitation 
is the attempt to be also an Ego and to 
express the Self in an object. The child has 
thus become its own picture-maker, and will in 
this respect too mainfest the developing Ego. 
(1) Its first picture will show chiefly the joy of 
the act, the delight in the expression of the Self; 
the mood is not critical. The picture need not 
be very accurate, just a little similar to the real 
object; the child has separated the image from 
within and made it external, and therein has 
uttered itself; it too has now an Ego active, 
triumphant and can re-create the whole world in 
its own forms. (2) The child becomes critical, 
and starts to comparing its picture with the real 
object. The difference is noted, that which 
before gave so much pleasure no longer satisfies. 
The child finds its own imperfections, again a 
limit appears which must be transcended in some 



IMA GIN A TION. 295 

way. (3) It repeats the picture, corrects the 
faults which are not glaring, uses the object as a 
model. A new pleasure arises ; now the child 
takes delight, not simply in expression, but in the 
more perfect expression. 

Also at this point the experience of the race 
may be called in, which has elaborated the pres- 
ent form of self-utterance in the art of Drawing. 
The school, therefore, instructs in Drawing as 
well as in Reading, in the visible and the audible 
Symbol, for the picture is a Symbol, having a 
form which has, besides its physical purport, an 
inner Meaning. The rudest picture of the child 
signifies that its Ego has uttered (or outered) 
itself. 

The kindergarten, accordingly, should look 
after the child's need of drawing objects, and 
use the same as a means of its self-expression. 

While picture-making is a kind of play, it is 
also a counterpart to active play, it requires 
some contemplation of the thing to be 
drawn, some little thinking. The child, play- 
ing horse, has to show movement, and is really 
seeking to master the inner, moving principle 
of the animal, but the child chalking off 
the horse on a board, has to show observa- 
tion of the outer form at rest, which requires 
reflection rather than activity. If the picture be 
drawn from memory, there is a more internal 
process : the child's Ego has to seoarate the 



296 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

image from itself in order to project it. Finally, 
if the child is looking at the picture made by 
another, the contemplative element is still further 
emphasized. 

There is another kind of picture-making, 
whose material is sound and whose instrument is 
the human voice. The child begins to talk in 
pictures, which are also a form of the Ego 
uttering itself. Speech is, indeed, the most 
intimate expression of the soul, taking up and 
embodying in its tones the images which Ego 
internally separates from itself. The greatest 
picture-maker is the Ego painting in sound. 
Moreover it throws its pictures of this kind into 
Time, into succession, while it projected those of 
the previous kind into Space, into extension. 

Thus the Ego projects its Space-picture, which 
has shape, and its Time-picture which is at first 
the word. Both are Symbols having an inner 
meaning to an outer form. The image of the 
external object both in extension and in succes- 
sion is seized upon by the Ego for self-utterance. 

In the movement of the Natural or Implicit 
Symbol we have found that the Ego makes the 
Form (say the picture), while the Meaning is the 
real object. At first for the child the making of 
the picture is a making of the real object, till it 
separates image from reality. But the Ego has 
now separated Form and Meaning; the picture 
means the object, but is no longer the object. 



IMA GIN A TION. 297 

In like manner the vocal sound or spoken word 
is a Form which has for its Meaning a real ob- 
ject. Thus we observe that in the Natural SVni 
bol the Form has become a product of the Ego. 
while the Meaning of this Form is a thing o 
Nature. 

The Ego now finds that it has made th ; : 
Form — the picture or the word — is master of tl; 
same, and so can employ it at will. Accordingly 
the Ego begins, consciously or unconsciously, t<> 
put its own Meaning into its own Form, along- 
side of the previous natural Meaning. Hen with, 
however, the Natural Symbol comes to an end, 
and the Artistic or Explicit Symbol has arisen. 

II. The Artistic or Explicit Symbol. 

This is again the second stage of the Ego, that 
of separation, which, however, has its own distinc- 
tive character. The Form is now seen to have, 
strictly speaking, two Meanings, a nature-mean- 
ing and a thought-meaning. When I read in 
Shakespeare the expression : " We have scotched 
the snake, not killed it," I am aware of two 
Meanings, the one pertaining to the literal fact, 
the other to the human deed which it suo^ests. 
The literal Meaning, however, can only be ob- 
tained by an effort of analysis, and vanishes 
before the second Meaning, which is the Mean- 
ing that the Ego (in the above instance Macbeth's 



298 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYCHOSIS. 

Ego) puts into the Form, here an Image in 
words. The first Meaning, accordingly, blends 
with the Form, which is taken from Nature, 
while the second Meaning, that of the Ego or 
the thought, becomes the emphatic one. 

Thus the dualism between Form and Meaning, 
which has been hitherto implicit and undeveloped, 
becomes explicit and pronounced, showing the 
Form given by Nature versus the Meaning given 
by the Ego; the two sides, sharply separated yet 
firmly united, constitute the Symbol, which, 
therefore, has in it the process of the Ego, and 
is a new revelation of the Psychosis, through 
which it is connected with the total psychical 
movement. 

Moreover, this new Symbol may be called the 
Artificial (as against the Natural) Symbol, or 
better, the Artistic Symbol, since with it Art has 
dawned. The Art-symbol, therefore, rises out 
of and is intimatjely connected with the Nature- 
symbol, which is hardly more than the Ego's di- 
rect reproduction and imitation of the object of 
Nature. But the Ego begins to put its own 
Meaning into the Nature-symbol, and thereby 
transforms it into an Art-symbol. 

The characteristic of the Explicit Symbol, 
therefore, is the separation and interaction be- 
tween Form and Meaning. The Ego has un- 
folded the Image into a difference corresponding 
to its own ; the previous stage, in which Meaning 



IMAGINATION. 299 

was sunk in the Form, has gone over into a more 
advanced condition Now the symbolic activity 
of the mind distinctively shows itself and builds 
for itself a great world, which has to be organized 
by the person who wishes to understand symbol- 
ism in the development of the individual as well 
as in the historic movement of the race. 

Herein we shall find the inner process which 
has hitherto manifested itself in all the works of 
the Ego. The distinction between Form and 
Meaning is made valid in numerous products, 
while the external Form is kept substantially 
intact. But the Ego finds this external Form 
alien to itself, begins to attack it and to trans- 
form it in various ways, till it becomes more 
pliable or more expressive of the inner Meaning. 
Finally from this struggle there arises a harmony 
between the Ego and its Form, and the World 
Beautiful has arisen upon the wondering eyes of 
mortals. 

The general statement of the threefold move- 
ment of the Explicit Symbol we shall mark out 
more distinctly in the following survey. 

I. Form kept, but new Meaning put into it. 
That is, the second or derived Meaning slips in 
alongside of the native Meaning, whereby the 
Implicit Symbol goes over into the Explicit one. 
The duplicity is here in the Meaning. 

II. Form changed or transformed; the Ego 
treats the Form as it has treated the Meauing, 



300 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

knowing the same to be its own; the duplicity 
enters the Form also, divides it and alters it. 

In the previous stage the Form was single, 
though the Meaning was double ; but now the 
Form too is double, or treble it may be, or more, 
while the Meaning corresponds, and thus gets 
lost in the multiplicity of shapes. Oriental 
art. 

III. Form transfigured; it is restored to unity 
with itself and to harmony with the Meaning, 
which now becomes transparent in and through 
the Form, and finds therein its adequate expres- 
sions. Art-forms of the Occident. 

The movement of the Explicit Symbol in its 
complete sweep is what is usually called the 
movement of Art in its historic development 
from the beginning down to the present. All 
Art is, however, not beautiful, at least not beau- 
tiful to us Occidentals. An ugly period in the 
Orient preceded the Greek ideal of beauty. But 
the latter unfolded out of the former, and a 
study of symbolism includes both. The Ego 
was at work in the East as well as in the West, 
in Egypt as well as in Hellas. Our psychology 
cannot be limited by aesthetic canons, though it 
certainly must include them. The groping 
lines of the savage, the fastastic grotesquery of 
the Hindoo are psychological as well as the 
exquisite symmetry of the Greek. A History 
of Art is an illustrated World History, with pic- 



IMAGINATION. 301 

tures taken by the Ego of itself id its various 
stages of progress. A general outline of these 
stages we shall now seek to set forth. 

I. Form kept but new Meaning put into it. 
The separation takes place, but the Ego in this 
sphere preserves the external object intact, though 
changing its physical or outer purport into an 
inner. Nature is not directly tampered with or 
forced into an alteration of her native shape in 
order to express some conteut of the Ego. 
Three phases we shall here designate. 

1. There is an immediate union of Form with 
Meaning. Each side is present in full force, yet 
not sundered. If a poet gives a description of 
shooting Niagara Falls, it will intimate a great 
and dangerous crisis of the individual or of the 
nation; the physical o.bject bears a spiritual 
counterpart, when it is elevated into a Symbol. 
A description of the storm in the Odyssey reflects 
the storm in .the hero's soul, else it were not 
poetic. Likewise the story of the wanderings of 
Ulysses to many a foreign land is not a geograph- 
ical account, in spite of the commentators ; if it 
were such merely, it would be prose, even if 
written in good hexameters. A description of a 
flower may be beautiful, fanciful, ingenious, and 
still not be symbolical, that is, may not have an 
inner suggestion. Elaborate portrayals of 
scenery are often prosaic and dull, in spite of 
much ornament and effusive sentiment ; they 



302 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

lack the inner bond which unites them with the 
Ego. Read the descriptions of nature in Goethe's 
Wilhelm Meister and see how a poet makes 
them reflect the central action. It is, however, 
a nature-poet who proceeds unconsciously in this 
matter; his special gift is to see in the physical 
world about him the deepest intimations of the 
spirit, and to utter them in his verse. Such is 
specially Burns at his best, that is, when he does 
not spoil his poetic vision by trying to be 
reflective. 

In like manner the early Mythus shows an im- 
mediate, instinctive unity between Form and 
Meaning. The mythologizing Ego of the savage 
puts itself, that is, a person into the sun, the 
clouds, the storm, the motions of which are 
indicative of a will. But this person, while an 
Ego, is different from the ordinary individual; 
it has unlimited power, and its field of activity 
is the whole earth and heaven. The savage dis- 
tinguishes his limited Ego from this universal, 
all-powerful one, which he calls a deity. Mythol- 
ogy is the rise of man through the phenomena 
of nature to the conception of God. Thus the 
physical world becomes a Symbol laden with the 
spirit. Probably the ancient Vedas reveal the 
primitive mythical movement of man better than 
any other human document. The clouds may 
be the cows of Indra, whose milk is the rain 
dropping upon the earth and making it fruitful ; 



IMAGINATION. 303 

or they may be hateful demons seeking to 
quench the light of the sun-god. 

The primitive Aryan must verily have been a 
myth-maker, instinctive therein above all men ; 
Homer is his greatest child. Still the Semite is 
not far behind, especially with his story of Eden, 
which seems so naive, so unreflective, and which 
has taken such a mighty hold on the race, train- 
ing it out of its primal unconscious state into a 
self-conscious life, that story itself being the 
movement of the Ego in a mythical form. 

It is not always easy to say whether the poet 
was conscious or unconscious in his symbolizing 
activity. Homer often baffles us. The Hours 
which open and close the gates of Olympus for 
the Gods, and who, accordingly, preside over the 
portals between Time and Eternity, or between 
the Finite and the Infinite — to what extent was 
he aware of such a meaning? Still we may be 
sure that he knew the significance of the Allegory 
of the Prayers in the Ninth Book of the Iliad, 
and that he must have been conscious of the 
meaning of the symbol of the two fig-trees, the 
wild and the tame, under which Ulysses slept 
before going to Phseacia. (Odyssey, Book Y.) 

Our age is said to be no longer myth-making, 
but it still has the story, which now has become 
the anecdote. A good anecdote sets off the uni- 
versal character of a man or event in some narra- 
tive more or less fictitious, and is usually taken 



304 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

up and stamped by the people, though some 
individual may have started it going. The story 
of John Brown's reaching down and kissing the 
little negro child on his way to execution has 
been shown to be " a myth," still it embodies 
most effectively the truth of the situation, and 
well illustrates the old saying that poetry is 
truer than history. The anecdotes which clus- 
ter around the name of Lincoln, who was a myth- 
maker himself, show that the mythical spirit is 
not wholly dead. The popular hero is still 
enshrined in legend, even by a people otherwise 
prosaic; George Washington with his little 
hatchet is no exception. 

The anecdote has, however, a very wide sweep; 
it is most commonly an illustration of some ab- 
stract principle, maxim or fact; the story-teller 
usually starts off with saying, " That reminds 
me" of a similar incident or tale. Here we 
have a distinction made between Form and Mean- 
ing, or the illustration and the matter illustrated, 
wherewith we are ready to pass to the next head. 

2. Form kept, but a separation between Form 
and Meaning which is purposed. The Symbol 
thus falls into two distinct parts, and emphati- 
cally reflects the divisive state of the Ego. The 
shapes which arise from this division are many; 
in fact, the Form divorced from its Meaning, has 
a tendency to fall asunder into a multitude of 
fragments. Yet each fragment gives a glimmer 



IMAGINATION. 305 

of the sense or significantly points to the same, 
though it be hidden under a veil. Literature is 
simply full of these diversified bits of symbolism, 
a few of which we shall throw into groups where- 
in the reader will note the general sequence. 

(1) Here in advance we may place the Meta- 
pkor, which lies imbedded in all human speech, 
when it passes from expressing things of sense to 
expressing things of mind. The word divides 
within itself into Form and Meaning, or it has 
two meanings, the sensuous and the mental. 
When I say, *« I grasp your meaning,' ' I imply the 
separation above mentioned; the word " grasp" 
is a metaphor which the Ego has to divide in order 
to get its mental significance. All operations of 
the mind have to be expressed metaphorically 
at first; language has its metaphorical stage, 
writers have a metaphorical style, or a meta- 
phorical period. Undoubtedly language shows a 
tendency to free itself of the ambiguity of the 
metaphor, in proportion as it becomes the vehicle 
of thought ; culture finally gets to be purely the 
tillage of the mind. Still the Ego, unfolding 
itself in speech, imprints upon the very words its 
own duality. The Parable takes a simple event 
or an action, and describes it in some detail, with 
an undercurrent of a different purport running 
along with the narrative. " Behold, a sower 
went forth to sow." But we are made to feel 
the other meaning in the account of the sowing ; 

20 



306 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYGEOSIS. 

thus it is also with the rest of the parables in the 
New Testament, which loves to clothe some 
inner doctrine with the common occurrences of 
life, and has the general tendency to transform 
the whole sensuous world of man, even his food, 
his bread and wine, into a spiritual counterpart. 
The Comparison (or Simile) makes explicit the 
resemblance between the outer and inner, or 
between sense and spirit, which is implied in the 
metaphor and the parable. Homer is notably 
full of comparisons, while the Orient leans more 
to the implicit metaphorical manner, which 
Classic Art in all its forms is decidedly 
inclined to shun. Classicism is open, direct, 
unambiguous as possible ; that Homer has 
comparisons rather than metaphors is character- 
istic of his Hellenic blood as distinguished from 
the Oriental. Shakespeare on the contrary is 
highly metaphorical, while Goethe returns to 
the classical spirit. It ought to be noticed that 
there are many kinds of comparisons, outer 
things may be compared to outer and inner to 
inner; still the highest function of the com- 
parison is to reveal the inner through the outer, 
to help spirit grasp spirit through the external 
object. We should not forget that the' Ego 
through the symbol is trying to express itself 
so as to come to self-knowledge. 

(2) In the Riddle Form and Meaning fall 
wholly asunder, they are completely disjoined so 



IMAGINATION, 307 

that the latter is hidden in its external covering. 
All symbolism has an element of the riddlesome 
in itself, the Form may be said to have always 
two Meanings and sometimes more. In our 
time the riddle has for the most part dropped 
down to a mere sport or social game, though 
we sometimes even now hear of '« the riddle of 
existence." Bat in ages past the riddle has 
played no unimportant part in the move- 
ment of human consciousness. In old Greece 
was the sphinx-riddle which the Greek Hero 
was compelled to guess or perish ; in some 
fashion he had to get the inner from the 
outer, the Meaning from the Form, or lose 
his Hellenic destiny. The symbol of ancient 
Egypt was just this embodied riddle, the sphinx; 
that old people of the Nile seem to have been 
a riddle to themselves; indeed the entire Orient 
has this unclear, nrysterious, ambiguous view of 
itself, which becomes clarified in that little spot 
of antique sunshine known as Hellas. Yet this 
sunshiny spot is bordered with circumambient 
darkness. The Greek Oedipus guessed the 
riddle of the sphinx, but it should be added, fell 
into another deeper riddle in his own life. 
Allied to the riddle is the Oracle, the respouse 
of the God, which was often ambiguous, double 
in meaning, enigmatic, to the Greek mind. That 
is, the divine answer to man is dubious, and man 
himself must at last interpret the two-edged 



308 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

oracle through his own intelligence. * Apollo 
himself, God of Light, speaks in riddles, as if 
saying to his consultor: Think it out for your- 
self, just for that you have Reason. So Themis- 
tocles interpreted the " wooden walls " of the 
Delphic Oracle to mean ships and not the wooden 
inclosure of the Acropolis, and thereby saved 
his people. The oracular stage of Greek mind 
is seen everywhere in the History of Hero- 
dotus, who also shows the beginning of its disso- 
lution. Oedipus could guess the Egyptian 
sphinx-riddle, but could not circumvent the 
Greek Oracle that " he would slay his own father 
and marry his own mother." 

In the case of Themistocles, and in that of 
Socrates too, the interpreter who can see the true 
Meaning in the Form has become more impor- 
tant than the Oracle, and the latter has to decline. 
Still we may say that the Egyptian Riddle and 
the Greek Oracle show two great stages in the 
movement of the world-historical conscious- 
ness, both of which, however, have been trans- 
cended, though both may re-appear to-day in 
the undercurrents of civilized peoples. The 
mighty dramatist has employed both in his art; 
Hamlet perishes because he cannot solve the 
riddle of life ever present to him ; Macbeth is 
led on to a tragic fate by the oracles which drop 
down on his path. The riddle and the oracle 
may sink to a mere play of words, ex- 



IMAGINATION. 309 

pressing the duplicity of speech ; then comes to 
light the Pun. That well-known Oracle, Baron 
Rothschild, was once consulted by an American 
about the way to get rich, when he responded in 
his vernacular: "I buys sheep (cheap) and I 
sells deer (dear)." Such was the riddlesome 
response, which our American questioner had no 
great difficulty in interpreting. 

The pun has had its share of disparagement in 
these days, still it should be seen to be inherent 
in human language, which has double meanings in 
words just through being symbolical. A streak 
of punning runs through all literature, the very 
highest is not exempt; Homer, Dante, Shake- 
speare, Goethe have their puns, every one of 
them. There is hardly a vocable which has not 
an inborn tendency toward having two senses, 
patterning therein after the Ego, its source ; yet 
these two senses must be joined together by that 
same Ego, else there is no pun, which consists in 
uniting the double meaning in a single act of 
mind. The cunning duplicity of the word is thus 
overreached by the Ego and laughed at. 

(3) But Form and Meaning cannot thus stay 
asunder, they are seen fused together in other 
popular styles of expression, such as the Fable, 
which usually gives a short account of some ani- 
mal or of some physical fact with an implied 
reference to man. The fable thus has also the 
two meanings, one of nature and one of mind. 



310 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The farmer putting the snake, stiff with cold, 
into his bosom; the oak and the reed in the 
wind; the fox and the grapes, are well-known 
instances taken from iEsop, with whose name 
the fable is specially connected. He was re- 
puted to be a slave, and his humble wisdom may 
well remind us of Uncle Remus and Brer Rab- 
bit. The fable chiefly seizes the actions of the 
animal world for its Form, while its Meaning is 
some lesson of prudence or cunning, or some 
sudden flash into the depths of human nature. It 
always kept its little nook in the grand mansion 
of literature till the time of Lafontaine, who in 
his charming book elevated it into one of the 
world's classics. In this connection we may 
mention the Proverb, which often is hardly 
more than a concentrated fable. " When you 
are with wolves you must howl " is a form of 
statement in which the animal does work for the 
man. But the proverb has prodigious variety, 
drawing from every possible source, yet with 
the general tendency of putting tersely an inner 
sense into some outer shape. " A roiling stone 
gathers no moss; " " the longest pole knocks the 
persimmon; " "unrelated, uneducated." If the 
proverb comprises the fable into a pithy sentence, 
the Apologue may be regarded as the expansion 
of the fable into a tale or poem, having consid- 
erable length. Perhaps the most famous apo- 
logue in literature is the story of Reynard the 



IMAGINATION-. 311 

Fox, in which the chief members of the animal 
kingdom are introduced as characters, and an 
action is spun out of them which reflects the 
conduct of men and portrays the spirit of an age. 
In Personification there is also the separation 
between Form and Meaning. But a new turn 
comes in ; some lower existence, an object of 
nature or even an abstract quality, is made into 
a person ; the entire Ego may stand for one of 
its attributes. Hence personification runs the 
danger of becoming hollow, formal, spiritless, 
since the all-embracing Ego is filled with one of 
its own little abstractions ; with such a content 
the Form seems indeed empty. It is well-known 
that the Roman poets liked personification, which 
appears so stiff and jejune beside the concrete 
shapes of Greek poetry. Later Pome had little 
faith in the Gods as persons, hence they existed 
chiefly in their attributes ; Caesar hardly believed 
in Minerva, but did believe in Wisdom. Still the 
greatest poets, even early Homer, employ per- 
sonification, generally in a subordinate way. We 
should not forget, however, that thetwo most ideal 
female characters in modern literature, Dante's 
Beatrice and Goethe's Margaret, hover between 
Person and Personification. The Allegory is 
an expanded Personification, in which usually 
the Virtues and the Vices, Peace and War, 
the Seasons and the Graces appear in some 
kind of action. Two allegorical masterpieces 



312 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

have a permanent place in English literature: 
Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress and Spenser's Faerie 
Queen. In groups of sculpture and in the spec- 
tacular drama, allegory asserts strongly its right. 
But it lacks the fullness of characterization 
which exhibits the concrete living man, and which 
shows not simply one abstract trait or tendency 
but also the counter tendency. Othello is not jeal- 
ousy alone, but also the struggle against jealousy. 
The Ego is not the blank identity of one virtue or 
one vice, but it divides within itself and must 
show self-opposition in order to reveal its process. 

Such are some of the shapes which spring from 
the separation of the symbol into Form and 
Meaning. The above list is far from being ex- 
haustive ; the figures of speech and the kinds of 
verse belonging here are almost innumerable. 
A Ehetoric or a Poetic might undertake to order 
them; this order, however manifold its details, 
should always be seen springing from the Ego, 
whose finest divisions are to be unified finally in 
the Psychosis. 

In the present stage of the Symbol, its inner 
division has certainly manifested itself in an 
adequate fashion. But the Ego cannot remain in 
separation, nor can the Symbol, its imaginative 
child. Now we shall note a movement toward 
the uniting of Form and Meaning, which will 
not be the first or immediate unity, but the 
unity which comes after and- contains in itself 



IMAGINATION. 313 

the previous separation. That is, the process of 
the Symbol is now to be a conscious one, which 
is the stage next to be unfolded. 

3. Form kept, but a unity between Form and 
Meaning which is purposed. The dualism of the 
foregoing stage is overcome, yet is ideally pre- 
served in the self-conscious procedure of the Ego. 
There is still fidelity to the outer object, yet this 
fidelity is intended ; the symbolic activity of 
mind has become aware of itself, and proceeds to 
a fresh manner of expression, which takes up its 
present stage. 

In this realm of conscious symbolizing we 
have to place a large part of the poetry, story- 
telling and novel-writing of a civilized age. The 
Ego with its new meaning reverts to the old 
forms of nature and of the mythus, and makes 
them again the utterance of the spirit of the 
time. In this present sphere it will manifest 
itself in three phases, naturalistic, paramythical 
and realistic. 

(1) Nature is seized upon and made to take 
the atmosphere and the color of the soul. A 
picture by Turner seeks not only to be true to 
the reality but to give to it a psychical mood, 
or a suggestion of an indwelling presence of 
the spirit. A description of a landscape by 
Ruskin will intimate the soul which has or ought 
to have its home in such an environment. The 
poet also employs nature for the expression of 



314 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

his moods or even of his thought ; yet she is 
not to be forced into some strain foreign to 
herself ; her form is to be respected, and even 
her dim intimations are not to be violently 
crossed ; rather are they to be carried up into 
the clear sunshine of the self-knowing mind. 
Dante's landscape is specially wrought over, 
being selected, and adjusted to the soul at the 
center of each infernal ditch; the scenery which 
surrounds the indifferent, the violent, and the 
fraudulent spirits reflects the character of the 
sinner and of the sin, as well as hints the pun- 
ishment. The storm in the Third Act of Shakes- 
peare's King Lear is an instance of a conscious 
adaptation of the outer scene to the inner soul. 
Lear himself speaks of the tempest within and 
compares it to the tempest without, and the whole 
Act shows a grand interplay between the two 
sides, Nature and Mind. That the poet had such 
a purpose in view, is manifest from the outspoken 
connection which he makes between both. The 
storm in Rome, which is described in Julius 
Ccesar, is made prophetic of the great political 
upheaval which is on the point of transpiring. 
In Goethe's novel above alluded to there is the 
subtlest relation unfolded between the characters 
and their physical surroundings — doubtless a 
conscious procedure largely, on the part of the 
novelist. The study of the intimate correspond- 
ence between the child's mind and its surround- 



IMAGINATION. 315 

ings in nature is one of the hopeful outlooks of 
the school and the kindergarten. 

(2) It is, however, in the Mythus that we first 
see this symbolizing spirit at work, keeping the 
old forms in their main outlines, but pouring 
into them new meanings. Such a transmuted 
myth we may call by a new yet corresponding 
name — paramyth, that is, a myth with an 
additional sense. Moreover the present stage 
implies a conscious mythologizing, and is herein 
distinct from the first unconscious stage. The 
story of Arethusa the beautiful maiden fleeing 
from the wild huntsman Alpheios, and passing 
under the sea to Sicily where she rose as a foun- 
tain, was probably at first a product of the 
instinctive mythical spirit, elevating some phe- 
nomenon of nature into a person ; but it became 
a paramyth when told of the Greeks migrating 
to Sicily or of the Europeans crossing the Ocean 
and settling in America. Likewise the tale of 
Persephone was primarily a physical event, the 
process of the seasons, behind which persons 
were placed ; then it was transfigured into a 
spiritual process hinting of life, death, immor- 
tality, and even resurrection, and was represented 
by symbolic rites in the Eleusinian Mysteries. 
Thus in antiquity it became a sublime paramyth, 
and indeed, the most of early Greek mythology 
in the later classical period was paramythical. 
Quite all reproductions of Hellenic tales have the 



316 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

same tendency. An enormous output of con- 
temporaneous verse is a working over of classic 
mythology in forms of the paramyth. Mankind 
loves to hear the old familiar story, yet colored 
with a new significance. Goethe in the Second 
Part of Faust has elaborated nearly all the old 
Greek mythical stores into their modern para- 
mythical counterpart. 

But not only Greek Mythology undergoes this 
transmutation, the mythical stores of all peoples^ 
even down to the savages, are being drawn upon 
and whirled into the modern paramythical move- 
ment. Christian Medieval legend is again made 
to flow into poetry and romance ; the Saints, 
the Blessed Damozel, the Holy Grail have 
obtained a new transfiguration in the poetrj^, 
art, and music of our day. Old Celtic story, 
the Arthurian cycle, has received fresh life at 
the hands of Tennyson, with many rills, like Sir 
Launfal, Guenivere, Tristan, running through 
other poets. The ancient Teutonic Mythus with 
its rude vigor and colossal stretches has been 
born again, and woven into the very fibre of our 
age by Richard Wagner ; nor in this palingenesis 
of mythical Teutonia are Morris in England and 
Jordan in Germany to be left out. Beyond all 
forms of the European Mythus are we reaching 
out ; Hindoo legend has its representatives in the 
verse of the time, and fleeting folk-tales of the 
American Indian have been wrought over into an 



IMAGINATION. 317 

enduring shape in the well-known poem of Long- 
fellow. So the savage man is not only to be 
transformed into the civilized man, but his 
legend, the rude utterance of his Ego, is to 
undergo a corresponding transformation. 

Thus the primitive Mythus is not to be lost, 
though it may be buried for a time; the para- 
mythical spirit digs up the crude gold, frees 
it of dross, coins it anew, and sends it abroad 
into the world once more, restoring to the race 
a portion of its vanished mythical treasures. 
For the Mythus is a genuine expression of the 
Ego in one of its stages; this stage every human 
being has to pass through in his development. 
The Mythus is truly educative, and must be 
Restored to its place in education ; it has been a 
great trainer of man in the past, and has by no 
means lost its efficacy in the present. Par- 
ticularly the fairy-tale in its transfigured form 
must be restored to children. It was the primi- 
tive means of their education, and we see it still 
employed in active energy in the Odyssey, which 
is probably the greatest educational book of the 
race. The paramythical spirit of our time must 
enter the fairy-tale, indeed it has already so 
entered; keeping the Form, it must pour into 
the same the new Meaning, and thus restore to 
the child his lost or forbidden spiritual expression. 

We have observed the Ego generating the 
Mythus through its own inherent need of self- 



318 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

utterance. It seizes the phenomena of nature 
and puts into them or behind them itself, namely 
a person, whose actions they express. The shift- 
ing appearances of the sky, clouds, sunlight, 
thus become the deeds of a mythical man and are 
employed to utter his Ego. But in the course of 
time this mythical element withdraws more and 
more into the background, till at last it drops 
out entirely; man comes to express his actions 
not through a mythical medium, but directly, in 
their own native shape. 

(3) Thus the experiences of life give directly 
the Form into which the Ego puts its Meaning. 
The utterance is no longer paramythical, there 
is no taking of the old fable to express the new 
sense. The movement of human existence, as it 
really unfolds itself in this world of ours, is 
shown immediately, in the form in which it 
occurs. In such manner the modern Novel comes 
to light, in which the Ego utters its experience 
in the very form of that experience. Very 
striking is the contrast with the ancient 
Homeric method, which had always to inter- 
ject the God between the Ego and its ex- 
pression of itself. The mythical world is disen- 
chanted, or rather emptied of its beings, who for 
so many ages helped man in many things, but 
chiefly helped him to know himself. Now he can 
get along without them, being full-grown, or at 
least having outgrown the aid of the fairies. 



IMAGINATION. 319 

No hero or even deity will he take in order to 
utter his life ; his life is to utter itself. 

The Novel is the great Art-form of our age. 
It is essentially realistic, its tendeacy is neces- 
sarily toward realism so-called; its movement is 
to throw out the intermediate forms of expression , 
and to portray human doings literally, immedi- 
ately, without intervening ideal shapes. In it 
Form and Meaning have reached a new unity ; 
in fact, the Meaning has taken its own direct 
Form and employed it directly. 

Herewith this last manifestation of conscious 
symbolizing brings itself to a conclusion ; though 
freely changing the Meaning, it has kept the 
Form through these stages which we may name 
the naturalistic, the paramythical and the 
realistic. 

Furthermore we shou'ld look back a little and 
note also the fact that the first grand sweep of 
the Explicit Symbol has reached its end. 
Through its unconscious, its separative, and its 
redintregrative stages it has passed, and thrown 
down in passing many a form of literature and 
art. But these three stages are also to be seen 
as in reality the one process of the Ego, which 
in the present sphere, is uttering itself symboli- 
cally, or is creating the world of symbols. All 
the divisions, distinctions, definitions, which have 
been so numerous, become one in the Psychosis; 
they must not be dragged in from the outside, 



320 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

but are to unfold out of the process of the Ego 
itself, whose impress is to be seen in the finest 
sub-divisions. Not a dead cabinet of separate 
specimens is this science of the mind, but a 
living process. 

In the Novel and also in the paramyth we had 
many a premonition that the Form could not 
forever remain intact, that the Ego must finally 
enter it and alter it according to the behest 
of the Meaning. In a certain sense we might 
say that the paramythical spirit changes 
not only the Meaning of the instinctive 
Mythus, but also its Form, kneading it over 
as so much material for its purpose. Still 
we have to say, in general, that the outline 
and character of the mythical element are 
retained in its paramythical counterpart; the 
latest tale of Helen of Troy still runs on the 
lines of the oldest. But now we have reached 
an important new phase in the movement of the 
Explicit Symbol. 

II. Form transformed; the Ego asserts its mas- 
tery over the Form as well as over the Meaning, 
using and intermingling at will physical shapes. 
In the preceding stage, the Form was preserved ; 
there was fidelity to the external object, the 
outer appearance remained true to nature, 
though the sense was altered. But now differ- 
ence penetrates the Form also, as previously it 
entered the Meaning and made the same two- 



IMAGINATION. 321 

fold. The Ego in its separative activity, which 
divided the one, now breaks in twain the other, 
in order to manifest the complete process of the 
symbol. 

Historically the present stage revealed itself 
specially in the Orient, whose chief art-forms 
are here to be considered. But it is by no 
means wanting in the Occident, particularly in 
the Classic world, where Art both rose out of 
and relapsed into Oriental shapes. 

In observing the movement of this stage, we 
note that there is at the start the direct trans- 
formation, the descent of man into the animal ; 
then the animal divides within its own shape, as 
it were, and two animals or more are in parts 
conjoined in their complete difference; finally this 
monstrous pla}' of animal shapes is subordinated 
to the human form. 

1. The first, then, is metamorphosis of the 
human into the bestial shape, which from the 
earliest ages has been a phase of man's belief 
and of man's expression of himself. The high- 
est form of nature is thus transformed into a 
lower, and the meaning is suggested directly by 
the fact. It signifies a degradation of the 
rational to the irrational, and we can still say of 
a man that he makes himself a brute. This 
metamorphosis has been expressed not so much 
by plastic art as by poetry. It is usually in the 
nature of a punishment, and the consequence of 

21 



322 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

man's own deed. Through all time runs this 
idea of a bodily transformation from the higher 
to the lower shape, a relapse to original animality. 
The were-wolf is still running about alive to-day 
in the dark nooks of the civilized world. 

We shall have to go back to the Orient for the 
earliest stage of the doctrine of metamorphosis, 
especially to ancient Egypt with its belief in the 
transmigration of souls. Death freed the soul 
from the body, when it took another body, that 
of an animal, and so it passed through a cycle 
of bestial incarnations. Exactly how the old 
Egyptians themselves looked upon this curious 
process, is not easy to say ; there seems to lurk 
in it, however, some dim idea of penalty and 
purgation. In the famous picture of the Judg- 
ment of Osiris in Amenti, we have a suggestion 
that a soul has been condemned to take the body 
of a swine, doubtless in requital for deeds done 
in the body. The Egyptian had, however, his 
sacred animals, which he adored, and to which he 
assigned entire districts and towns; the holy 
crocodile of the Nile had its own city, Crocodil- 
lopolis. On the whole, the Egyptian must have 
felt himself very near to the brute creation, and 
for him it was not so much of a change after all 
to quit his own corporeal abode and enter that of 
an animal. 

But when we come to Hellas, the change is 
far more marked. Metamorphosis is a degrada- 



IMAGINATION. 323 

tion in the main ; to the Greek the human frame 
was the apex of nature, the dwelling-place of 
the spirit, and could become the visible mani- 
festation of the Gods. Still the Greek mythus 
has many kinds of transformation from above 
to below. Zeus himself assumed the shape of 
a bull to woo Europa, of the swan to approach 
Leda, of a shower of gold to enter the chamber 
of Danae. Only temporary were these shapes 
of the deity, but the Greeks themselves regarded 
them as degradations. The famous story of 
Philomela and her sister Procne tells of trans- 
formation through guilt. It is to be noted that 
Ovid was the poet who collected and transmitted 
the most of these tales in his book of Metamor- 
phoses. He lived in the decline of the classical 
age, which itself had sunken from its ideal, and 
was going out in a grand debauch of the senses. 
The antique world had transformed itself into 
the animal, and Ovid is its poet in this regard. 
The sculpture of the Koman time tells the 
same story, with its multitude of fauns, satyrs, 
bacchantes, sileni, in all sorts of drunken 
and licentious attitudes. Very different was the 
situation in old Greece even in Homer's time. 
Circe, it is true, changed the companions of 
Ulysses into swine, but the Hero subordinated 
her and compelled her to give back to them their 
human shapes. Thus he was truly a Greek Hero. 
In the Christian world there is also the trans- 



324 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

formation of the man into a beast, but its poet 
is not an Ovid but a Dante. The lapse of the 
human being into the animal is now treated not as 
an entertaining story, not as a folly or even as a 
crime against self, but as a sin against God. To 
contain such a soul Hell is born with all its 
monsters, and the entire heathen world at one 
cast is whelmed into the pit. Verily the poet 
has become the world-judge and proclaims the 
vengeance of God (vendetta di Dio). At the 
entrance to every compartment of the In- 
ferno is a monster, part human part animal 
usually, picturing in himself the metamorphosis. 
Geryon, "the image of fraud," has the face 
of a just man with a body running out into 
the tail of a scorpion. The general purport 
of the Dantesque monster is : the anknal as 
animal is not a guilty thing, nay is an innocent 
piece of God's creation, but man as animal, 
using his reason to subserve the passions and 
appetites of the beast, is a thing of sin, a horrible 
monster, fit only to be damned. Thus Dante 
makes the grand metamorphosis out of the 
Heathendom into Christendom ; the whole Greek 
mythology is undergoing in his hands transform- 
ation into infernal shapes. The negative side 
of the Greek world Dante solves, negating its 
negation; its positive side, however, remains and 
will again appear, re-incarnating itself under 
many forms in the body of Time. 



IMAGINATION. 325 

Thus we witness three stages of the meta- 
morphosis of man to animal — the Oriental, 
which is the naive or innocent, at least non- 
moral, stage ; the Greek, which is the guilty or 
immoral stage, even according to the ancient 
philosophers ; the Christian, which is the stage at 
which bestiality becomes a sin. The symbolizing 
imagination has in such fashion given this row of 
shapes down the ages, to utter a movement of 
the Ego. But now another row comes to light. 

2. We have just beheld the descent of man to 
the animal ; now we are to see this realm of 
beasthood in a process with itself whereby 
another order of symbols comes to view. The 
Ego will take several beasts and join them 
together in order to express itself. It is a dark, 
chaotic, forbidding expression, yet true ; it is 
alien to Occidental feeling and thought, yet the 
preliminary stage to our art and literature. A 
play of animal monstrosities we witness, yet it 
is the struggle to rise through the brute above 
brutishness. 

The separation of the Form within itself has 
now become real, is placed before our very eyes, 
in the conjunction of two animals, as in the 
example of the Winged Bull. Previously there 
was the passage from one shape to the other ; but 
here the metamorphosis is in a kind of equi- 
librium. In such a picture the Ego shows itself 
in a state of self-opposition, even in its animality. 



326 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

It will join animal and animal, then animal and 
man, finally it will abolish such a monster, when 
destructive, through the deed of the hero, where- 
in we reach the principal of the subordination of 
the animal. 

Throughout all countries of the East, both 
ancient and modern, there is an artistic ex- 
pression which unites two different animals, or 
portions of them, into one shape, and sets the 
same before the people in public places. lit the 
works of old Assyrian, Persian, Babylonian 
sculpture such shapes often occur, but their 
home is specially Egypt. Winged lions and 
bulls are frequent, the heads of birds on four- 
footed beasts and on the human body, likewise 
on dragons and crawling things. In the Greek 
world such forms are also present, doubtless 
transmitted from the Orient. But it is the 
special function of the Greek Hero to put down 
these monsters of the East, else indeed he were 
no Hero. So the Asiatic Chimsera, a composite 
threefold, with the head of a lion, the body of a 
goat, and the tail of a dragon is conquered by 
the Greek Hero Bellerophon. Griffins, hippo- 
griffs, fishy half-forms of the sea course through 
Greek Mythology and Art in a kind of under- 
current. Here also belong many of the beasts 
of the Hebrew Prophets, and the apocalyptic 
monsters of St. John, which have become a 
grand religious expression of the ages. The 



IMAGINATION. 327 

symbolism is indeed dark, being the remotest 
Form which the Ego can take, and at the same 
time being twofold and threefold and even mani- 
fold in external shape. 

There is also the conjunction of some part of 
the human shape (head, trunk, extremities), 
with some part of some animal. The two sides 
stand in juxtaposition, yet in an unreconciled 
dualism. Thus the grand gulf between man and 
beast is brought vividly before the mind, yet with 
the suggestion that they must be at last one. 
The great example in this sphere is the sphinx, 
the Egyptian symbol, representing doubtless both 
the belief and the problem of Egypt. Man and 
animal, we may say, or soul and body, or even 
spirit and matter ; such is the grand dualism of 
existence, unmediated, yet indissolubly linked 
together in its two sides. So, we must think, 
the old Egyptian pictured himself to himself. 
Many other similar shapes are found in the Nile 
valley — the body of a man with the head of a 
hawk or of a beast of prey, for instance; some- 
times the sphinx exchanges its human head for 
that of a ram or a bird. Most prolific is this 
interplay of living forms; as the slime of Nile 
River had a tendency to plunge over into one 
vast mass of wriggling, creeping life, so the 
Egyptian Ego must have swarmed with the com- 
mingled shapes of animal and man. 

The Greek Mythus had also its commingled 



328 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

shapes of animal and man, belonging in part to 
the old order of the Gods of nature, and in part 
to the divinities of the sea, Oceanids, Tritons, 
Nereids ; Proteus could take what form he pleased. 
Pan, the Faun and the Satyr have still a relic of 
the animal somewhere, in the hoof, in the pointed 
ear, or in the snub nose. The Centaur is half 
horse and half man, but in the Centaur Cheiron, 
who was the teacher of Achilles and the Greek 
Heroes, there is the subordination of the animal 
part, and just that suggests what he, called " the 
noble pedagogue " by Goethe, taught to the 
Heroes. 

The Minotaur is the most famous of these 
commingled shapes of Greek legend. It lay in 
Crete on the dividing line between Greece and 
the Orient, and there it demanded its sacrifices 
from Athens on the mainland. It also had its 
labyrinth which connects it with Egypt; it was 
indeed an Egyptian monster like the sphinx, 
consuming Hellenic people. The Athenian 
hero, Theseus, at last slays it, rescuing himself 
and its victims. The double monstrous shape 
of Egypt is now put down in Hellas, and we pass 
to a new phase. 

3. This is the subordination of nature in all her 
manifestations to the spirit of man. Such 
is, in general, the work of the Greek world 
in Art and Literature. Still the Greek did 
not do away with the physical side of exist- 



IMAGINATION. 329 

ence ; he kept it, but he transmuted it into 
the image and abode of the spirit. In the 
World's History Greece is the bridge from nature 
to mind, from Orient to Occident, from the fan- 
tastic to the beautiful, from animal to man. The 
Greek has in him both ends of the bridge, and 
the bridge too. In him and through him the race 
made its spiritual journey out of Asia to Europe. 
Certain landing-places in that journey we may 
briefly designate. 

Greek Mythology has in many ways celebrated 
the conquest of physical nature, and the subjec- 
tion of it to man's purposes. Indeed the chief 
Hero of Hellas, Hercules, has such a meaning in 
his labors and adventures. He slew the Ery- 
manthian boar, the Lernsean serpent, the Stym- 
phalian birds; he drained swamps, opened new 
channels for rivers, won new land, routed the 
dreadful miasma; he made Greece habitable, 
rendered the earth a fit abode for a rational being 
through the slaughter of wild beasts, through 
taming and directing the forces of nature. So 
much for his doings in his own country. And, 
as the Greek man was also a sailor, Hercules, 
the Greek Hero, must appear on the sea, 
and master that in his way ; he passes to 
Colchis in the East, to the straits of Gibraltar 
in the West, and thus quite embraces in 
his voyages the limits of Greek navigation. 
But the visible Greek world is not alone the 



330 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

scene of his spirit's activity; he goes beyond, 
enters Hades and drags thence its terrible dog 
Cerberus; also he reaches the garden of Hes- 
perides, plucks its golden apples and brings 
them back to Hellas. With infinite toil is his 
work accomplished, requiring an inner subjec- 
tion of self as well as the outer subjection of 
nature. At last, he, the mortal, is placed among 
the Olympian Gods, though his eidolon, the 
shadowy image of his mortal part, is seen by 
Ulysses in Hades. Theseus is another such 
Hero, freeing the earth of beasts, a Hero of civ- 
ilization. But both Theseus and Hercules slew 
the monsters of the East, which fact leads to the 
next point. 

Already we have noted those commingled 
shapes by means of which the Orient expresses 
its spirit in art and in literature. The Ego re- 
veals itself in them as still involved in the toils 
of nature; consequently these shapes too must be 
put down by the Greek Hero. They are really the 
products of Oriental imagination and indicate its 
spirit. A large portion of Greek mythology is 
occupied with the combats between the two 
sides — the monster and the man ; both are really 
spirits, Hellenic versus Oriental, and the war is 
between these. The triple-shaped Chimaera of 
Asia Minor was slain by Bellerophon ; the Sphinx 
came to an end through Oedipus; the Minotaur 
was killed by Theseus ; the Lybyan sea-monster 



IMAGINATION. 331 

was destroyed by Perseus in one of his adventures, 
who released the beautiful Andromeda from the 
rock and brought her to Hellas as his spouse. 
In like manner the beautiful Helen was released 
from Asiatic Troy by that greatest mythical 
deed of the Greeks, the Trojan war. Thus the 
Greek Hero must fight for his ideal of beauty 
and restore her from Oriental enslavement. 

Then we have inside of Greece the struggle 
between the old and the new Gods, perpetually 
going on, which struggle has been reflected by 
Greek mythology in manifold ways. For the 
most ancient Greek Gods were primarily deities 
of nature, Ouranos, Gaia, Oceanos — Heaven, 
Earth, Ocean ; theirs was the first divine dynasty. 
Moreover in the background of the Greek 
Mythus hover many strange composite forms, 
analogous to the monsters of the Orient — the 
Gorgon Medusa with her snaky hair, Briareus 
with his hundred hands, Argus with his thousand 
eyes. But the chief figures of the Hellenic afore- 
time were the Titans, who made war upon the 
Olympians, were overwhelmed, and hurled down 
to Tartarus for punishment. Herein is set forth 
the final triumph of Greek spirit over inadequate 
and alien forms lurking within itself; it has 
purified itself both of nature and of the Orient, 
and starts the grand Occidental movement. The 
old poet Hesiod in his Theogony has transmitted 
a remarkable picture of this period of fermenta- 



332 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tion, which ended in the enthroning of Zeus and 
the Olympians in the clear upper sky of the 
Hellenic consciousness. 

The subordination is now complete. Greek 
spirit subjected and transformed nature and the 
earth into a dwelling-place of rational man and 
celebrated its victory in the Mythus ; it also 
went forth and conquered the destroying mon- 
sters of the East, which had clutched the human 
soul and were impeding its free development ; 
it purified itself internally through a series of 
stages, and at last dethroned and banished the 
old Gods into darkness. But the chief glory of 
wonderful Hellas is this: she was able to set 
forth all these changes in her beautiful world of 
Sj^mbols — in her mythology, her art, and her 
literature. Nature, the huge animal, has under- 
gone many transformations in the process of 
subjection, but now she is made the bearer and 
embodiment of the spirit. 

With this subordination of the Form, the dis- 
ruption between Form and Meaning is harmo- 
nized, and the Art-world, in the Occidental sense 
of the term, has dawned. The Meaning now 
takes its Form, no longer creating the monstrous 
but the beautiful, whose primal note is the 
harmony between Form and Meaning. The 
animal world is not lost, however ; Zeus is not 
an eagle, or the part of an eagle, though this 
bird is still placed with him as an external Sym- 



IMAGINATION. 333 

bol. Zeus may sit on a throne decorated with 
griffons or sphinxes ; these are now subordinate, 
an ornament or a suggestion. 

III. Form transfigured; it is not merely trans- 
formed, but it is completely made over into the 
transparent image of the Meaning. The Ego 
seizes the external world and elaborates it anew, 
transfigures it, so that it becomes the expression 
of the Ego as self-conscious, self-knowing, spir- 
itual. We thus reach the Art-forms, or the 
Symbols which the Occident has made for self- 
utterance. 

In the development of the Symbol hitherto, 
we observed the Ego kneading it and working 
out of it more and more the foreign ingredient 
of external nature. We found a higher and 
lower element side by side in the Sphinx, then 
took place the subordination of the lower to the 
higher in the conquest of the monster by the 
Hero. Now, however, the natural side is not 
simply to be subordinated, but is to be trans- 
figured, though still retained. In Egypt the 
body of a man was sometimes made with the 
head of a hawk ; such a work, however exqui- 
sitely finished, cannot be beautiful to us ; it is 
a grotesque, which we reject. In Greece the 
human body was taken as the true object of 
nature for the utterance of spirit ; yet the 
human body must be also transfigured ; must be 
filled with Meaning, and thus manifest the ideal. 



334 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Its heavy Egyptian condition is still laden with 
the externality of nature. 

At this point occurs a very important transi- 
tion in the movement of the World's History as 
well as in the unfolding of the Symbol. The 
mighty differentiation between Orient and Occi- 
dent manifests itself in Art. We have separated 
from the East in our conception of the Beautiful, 
Greece made the separation, and the Greek ideal 
dominates us to-day. We still find in the Hindoo, 
Chinese and Japanese Art of the present time 
an alien element, just as we find it in the Assy- 
rian and Egyptian Art of former ages. But we 
feel at home with Greek shapes, they are ours, 
and we cannot get rid of them without forsaking 
our heritage of beauty. 

The Greek took the Form of Man to express 
the Meaning of Man, to be the bearer of the 
spiritual. He made not a portrait but embodied 
an ideal, and thus opened the way for Occidental 
Art. The Form is still kept, but it means now 
the Ego as self-conscious, and in the work of art 
the Ego is to recognize itself as self-conscious. 
In the transfigured body of Greek sculpture the 
Ego realty looks at itself, at its own spiritual 
image, and knows itself as universal ; it recog- 
nizes therein the Divine Ego. 

But now this transfiguration of the Form is 
itself subject to the movement of the Ego, and 
we shall witness the Art of the Occident passing 



IMAGINATION. 335 

through its several stages, which we may name 
the Classic, the Romantic and the Modern. 

1. The Classic transfiguration of Nature cul- 
minates in the human shape, in which now the 
Ego finds its adequate expression, as the self- 
conscious principle of the world. This Meaning 
takes possession of the Form, keeps it jet trans- 
mutes it; is loyal to the natural object, yet also 
loyal to the spirit. Classicism is the unity and 
happy interpretation of Meaning and Form, so 
that neither is forced or disfigured, but both 
dwell together in harmony, making a true mar- 
riage. Serenity is the word usually employed to 
express this characteristic in Classic sculpture. 

In Greek art and literature we have many in- 
dications of the movement out of the struggle 
with the Orient into this state of repose, in which 
both Meaning and Form are for a time satisfied 
with each other. The statues of Phidias, the 
dramas of Sophocles, the temple Parthenon, 
the man Pericles manifest the culmination of 
purely Hellenic spirit, the immediate unity 
and harmony of the inner and outer worlds. 
Each individual became more or less a plastic 
character, in which these two worlds met, em- 
braced, and dwelt together in mutual satisfaction. 

But there was a multiplicity of well-rounded, 
self-sufficing individuals — men, cities, Gods. 
These individuals, each complete in itself, fell 
into conflict with one another. Thus our beau- 



336 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tiful Greek world, after putting down the Ori- 
ental, represented in the Persian politically, 
lapsed into shrillest discord, culminating in a 
long civil war, the Peloponnesian. The Hellenic 
Gods were also broken up into conflicting in- 
dividualities, and that old war of the Gods, 
prefigured by Homer, became a reality. 

Then a new deity began to appear from the 
outside, Fate, mightier even than Zeus. In the 
Laocoon group we have an image of the decadent 
Greek world, which is being destroyed by those 
two fateful serpents. Not without significance 
is the fact that the father, Laocoon, has the head 
and face of Zeus, the Greek father of Gods and 
men. Already in the story of Prometheus this 
new Titan, greater than Zeus, had been prophesied 
by the Greek My thus as shaped by the poet 
Aeschylus. Fate, indeed, began to close in upon 
little Hellas in the shape of Eoman conquests, 
inroads of barbarians, and, internally, on account 
of the lost faith in the overruling Gods. 

Fate is verily the new power which is uniting 
the divided and distracted Greek world, is the new 
God who implies the end of the old Gods. These 
are now subordinated, and Classic Art as the 
expression of the highest spiritual principle of 
the age has come to an end. It lives on as 
imitation, as a play, or an ornament to Roman 
life, but its soul has fled from the world. What 
will take its place ? 



IMAGINATION. 337 

2. It is manifest that the immediate unity 
between Form and Meaning, which is the charac- 
teristic of Classic Art, is broken in twain ; the 
Ego is no longer satisfied with the beautiful 
plastic individual as its expression. There is 
something beyond this Greek world of limited 
shapes, something which controls them, and 
which is not confined to such limits. The dual- 
ism again enters the Form, which is ambiguous 
as once before, having two Meanings, one exter- 
nal and one internal, or rather one finite and one 
infinite, one limited and one limit-transcending. 

Here we enter the realm of Romantic Art, 
which takes the birth, life, death and resurrection 
of Christ as its central Symbol. The individual 
is still present in body, but spiritually he is the 
Son of God ; he passes the limit, suffers death, 
which is followed by the rise out of death into 
eternal life. The Christian individual is the one 
who meets the grand limitation, overcomes it, 
and asserts his infinite portion. The human 
Form is employed in Christian Art, still it must 
not only be transformed, but transfigured, that 
is, made the bearer of the infinite spirit. In 
such a view the body is not esteemed as in Greek 
Art, it is not the adequate incorporation of spirit, 
but very inadequate. Still it is retained, and has 
to be retained, though crucified, tortured, 
scorned as the Evil One. 

Romantic Art will also have its movement, 

22 



338 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

which is the unfolding of the dualism of the finite 
and infinite to its natural outcome. 

In the first place there is the grand meta- 
morphosis of Classic shapes, indeed of the entire 
Classic world, into the Komantic one. The 
Greek spirit, which was so serene and happy in its 
finite form, is now made diabolic, is damned, and 
plunged into Hell. Such is specially the work of 
Dante in his Inferno. In the second place, the 
spirit recognizes the infinite beyond the finite and 
transcends the latter, is saved and goes to Heaven. 
Thus the Form with its two Meanings finite and 
infinite, makes Hell and Heaven, devils and 
angels, sinners and saints. There is a struggle 
between the two sides, a war in Heaven, in the 
church, and in the soul — the angelic host is 
triumphant. All Romantic Art gives some 
phase of this dualism, Dante protrays the whole 
movement. In the third place, a new difference 
appears, that between secular and religious life, 
a perennial struggle. The Church arms itself 
against secularity, puts it down, takes it up 
within itself and becomes itself worldly. State, 
Famity, Secular Institutions rise to independence. 
But the Church is really overcome by secularity, 
by that which it sought to subordinate. Thus the 
Church in its own process has developed its 
master who now appears. 

3. The return to the secular element of life is 
a return to the Classic world — Renascence. 



IMAGINATION, 339 

The grand movement is now to redintegrate the 
Classic with Romantic art, or to unite the 
two chief stages of Occidental culture. But 
the Renascence passes through its stages 
also, though our own time is still in its move- 
ment. 

There is the immediate return to Classicism, 
the study and adoption of Greco-Latin antiquity 
by the cultivated world. Such in its best mani- 
festation is called the Revival o£ Letters, the 
restoration of a great period of advancement in 
the race to its right in the culture of the individ- 
ual. This return, however, had its negative side, 
and became a going back to heathenism, to a 
stage beyond which humanity had progressed. 
Thus the return was a relapse from which spirit 
had to rescue itself. 

This brings us to the second stage, the Reform- 
ation, not simply the Protestant but also the 
Catholic, and not simply the religious but also 
the secular. The Reformation produces the 
grand schism, is indeed the schism itself, the sep- 
aration inherent in the movement of the Ego, and 
divided the Church into two Churches, Catholic 
and Protestant, and still further sub-divided both 
these churches. In the employment of ancient 
Learning the grand distinction must be made, its 
liberalizing and liberating spirit is to be adopted, 
while its limiting and heathenizing tendency is to 
be rejected. Thus humanism breaks the fetters 



340 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of the present, political, ecclesiastical, social, yet 
must not impose the fetters of the past. 

Herewith we begin to perceive a new phase of 
the Renascence, the redintegration of the Classic 
and the Romantic, the harmony of the two great 
movements of the Occidental world. The descent 
of the divine into the sensible, which is the 
characteristic of Greek Art, the ascent of the 
sensible into the supersensible, which is the 
essence of Medieval Art, can be united and made 
to supplement each other in a complete cycle. 

The greatest geniuses of modern times have 
caught this spirit and adopted it in their works. 
These works at their best give grand totalities, 
which embrace the entire sweep of time. Michel 
Angelo is the artistic genius of the Renascence, 
in the realm of outer form — architecture, sculp- 
ture, and painting. Rome is to-day dominated 
by his spirit, fitly represented by the colossal 
dome of St. Peter's. In poetry Shakespeare is 
the greatest child of the Renascence. In some 
of bis single dramas there is a marvelous inter- 
fusion of the Classic and the Romantic, as in Mid- 
summer Night's Dream; especially in Tempest is 
there a strict Greek form, united with the freest 
Romantic content. Shakespeare's entire works 
taken together constitute a mighty world-drama, 
which is a complete embodimen.t of the move- 
ment of the ages up to the poet's time. He was 
hardly conscious of this unity within himself ; 



IMAGINATION. 341 

he is, in general, to us the wonderful child of 
genius, yet universal as the race itself. On the 
other hand, the last world-poet, Goethe, has 
consciously embodied this unity of the Classic 
and Romantic in the Second Part of Faust, 
typifying it in the marriage of Faust and Helen. 
Wagner's music-drama also seeks a new synthe- 
sis of the Fine Arts. 

One of the most successful artistic embodi- 
ments of the symbolic expression of all ages was 
the last one, which was seen at the World's Fair 
in Chicago. Here the Form was chiefly archi- 
tectural. The Classic was present in the edifices 
of the Middle Enclosure (Court of Honor), while 
the Romantic dominated the Upper Enclosure 
(surrounding the Wooded Island); and to these 
Occidental symbolic shapes we may add the less 
complete, yet still very striking Oriental Symbol, 
which manifested itself in the Midway. The 
total Fair was indeed a genuine expression of the 
whole race, shown in its varied products, of 
which the most important and the most signifi- 
cant were the symbolic products. 

Still the last is hinted in the first, and the 
oldest poet has glimpses of the newest idea. 
Homer in his Odyssey has given us a great 
variety of artistic symbolism ; he, to a certain 
extent, resumes all the forms of expression which 
had been developed before his time — the Heroic 
Epos, the Idyllic Epopee, the Fairy Tale. But 



342 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

even the poetic forms of the future he pre- 
figures ; the Classic and the Romantic are both 
found in the Odyssey, which may be called the 
romantic poem of the classic world. What is 
most strange, the modern novel is likewise fore- 
stalled in that old Greek book, especially in the 
latter half, which interweaves into its action the 
story of Eumseus. Thus a great poem is truly 
encyclopaedic, all-embracing, taking up the past, 
reflecting the present, and prefiguring the 
future. 

We have now passed through the manifold 
varieties of the Artistic Symbol as they have 
unfolded in the soul of man down the ages and 
among the Nations. They all show the Form 
with a double Meaning, that of nature and that 
of spirit. Yet the Art-idea always implies that 
these two Meanings are related, indeed have or 
ought to have an intimate tie of kinship. The 
bond between nature and spirit is that which 
Art lays hold of as a means of utterance for the 
Ego. The natural object has its spiritual sug- 
gestion, perchance its spiritual counterpart ; this 
is what the true artist never fails in seeing and 
embodying. 

Three stages of the Artistic Symbol have 
developed in this interplay of Form and Mean- 
ing, which stages we may designate in a general 
way: Form preserved, Form transformed, 
Form transfigured. The Ego has made these 



IMAGINATION. 343 

changes j n order to utter its Meaning more 
adequately, unfolding and expressing itself 
through Art. In this threefold sweep there is a 
general Psychosis, but the careful student will 
observe and trace out for himself many subor- 
dinate ones in the course of the foregoing 
exposition. 

When the Ego in the process of the Artistic 
Symbol takes the Form of the natural object, 
and transfigures it into the transparent expres- 
sion of the Meaning, still preserving the sugges- 
tion of nature in the act of transfiguration, Art 
has done its uttermost, has reached its culmina- 
tion. Still the Ego cannot rest in the Artistic 
Symbol, which as yet acknowledges not only 
external Nature, but the inner Meaning of Nature 
corresponding to the spirit. Accordingly, the 
Ego will proceed to get rid of this last -rela- 
tion of nature in the Symbol, this last natural 
tinge of the Form in the Meaning, in order that 
it (the Ego) may come to the complete expres- 
sion of itself. Thus we pass out of the Artistic 
to the Kational or Completed Symbol, which the 
Ego makes in order to express itself purely, 
without any admixture of an alien suggestion. 

III. The Kational or Completed Symbol — 
The Sign. 

The Ego takes the object of Sensation, or the 
Image thereof, and puts its own purpose into the 



344 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

same, without regard to the natural significance 
of the object aforesaid. There is still the separa- 
tion into Form and Meaning, but the Ego seizes 
the Form and employs the same to express its 
own Meaning, quite indifferent to the sensuous 
Meaning of that Form. This is still called often 
a Symbol, but may be more definitely considered 
as the Sign, inasmuch as the distinctive artistic 
phase, wherein the sensuous element always sug- 
gests its spiritual counterpart, has vanished. 

The lily may be called the Symbol of purity, 
its whiteness suggesting the same in a natural 
way. But when the lily is taken as the Symbol 
of nationality (fleur de lis) it is more the Sign, 
as certainly this flower does not naturally bring 
to mind the French nation, or the House of 
Bourbon. 

Thus the Symbol passes into the Sign, or, to 
speak more precisely, the Ego completes the 
process of the Symbol by taking complete pos- 
session of the external thing and using the same 
for its own purpose. The Form is reduced to 
servitude to the Meaning, which no longer re- 
spects it as real, but changes it at will. In the 
preceding stage, even the monstrous and gro- 
tesque shapes of romanticism had a certain regard 
for reality; for instance, Dante's Geryon has the 
face of a just man, but the tail of a scorpion — 
both parts being natural as life, yet suggestive 
of the monster's character. But now the object 



IMAGINATION. 345 

is made to mean what the Ego chooses to put 
there, as when a piece of striped bunting stands 
for the American People. 

When the artistic Symbol becomes Sign, the 
Ego gives to the same its Meaning, the external 
Form little or nothing, though the latter must 
still be present. But the Form is quite reduced 
to a shadow, which is, however, now filled with 
a new life, that given by Ego, and it is this new 
life which makes it immortal. The natural 
Form, being so thoroughly discredited, its 
Meaning so completely disregarded, becomes 
the more pliable instrument of the Ego. The 
Sign, being a physical object almost without 
physical significance, is the supple tool of the 
Spirit, which will employ it as the best means 
of expressing the spiritual. In human speech 
the Sign reaches its completest shape, and 
winds up what we may call the symbolic move- 
ment of the Ego. 

The Sign is the grand means for the commu- 
nication of the Ego with Ego. I impart my 
thoughts to you and you impart your thoughts to 
me through Signs, which we both have to know 
beforehand, and whose inner Meaning is the medi- 
ating principle between us. That is, we both 
live in a Sign-world, in which we have to partici- 
pate, in order that we be associated together. 
This Sign-world, made by the Ego, is the means 
and the condition of a social order among men ; 



346 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

without it the human being would drop back 
into a separated, individualistic state of nature. 
Thus rises the grand idea of impartation ; the 
Ego can no longer be buried within itself, but is 
able to share its spiritual treasure with others, 
both giving and receiving. The Sign, unfolding 
into Speech, is truly the Sign of humanity, the 
bond internally connecting man with man. 

It is the wouder of wonders that I, writing or 
speaking here, can get out of myself and com- 
municate to you there what I think. I enter 
your very Self and impart my Self; all that 
I have realized in thought, is or may be yours. 
The mighty and otherwise impassable chasm 
between Person and Person is bridged by the 
Sign, and over this bridge both sides can pass in 
both directions. 

The Sign, though a very common matter, is 
worthy of being examined with profound study. 
I now put my own Meaning into any sensuous 
object, and that Meaning can be recognized by 
another Ego. Thus begins to rise communica- 
tion between man and man; my Ego has exist- 
ence in the external Sign, which is therein a 
medium for another Ego. In this present activ- 
ity of mind, anything and everything may 
become symbolical; it rests with the Ego who 
is master; whatever I see or hear or otherwise 
sense can be made a Sign. We go forth into 
the external world, we obtain a percept di- 



IMA GIN A TION. 347 

rectly, from which comes an Image, and then 
a Symbol, and one form of the Symbol is the 
Sign. 

Hitherto in the sphere of Imagination the 
Symbol has not been so distinctly for another, 
has not shown so decidedly the element of 
impartation. In Sense-perception, the object is 
simply internalized, is my own, and in Memory 
I separate the image, directly at least, for my 
own behoof. In the Implicit Symbol the driv- 
ing power is chiefly the need of self-expression ; 
in the Explicit Symbol there is not only self- 
expression but impartation, the artist longs 
to utter himself and also to say something to 
somebody. But in the Sign my Meaning is 
more for another and less for myself ; I seek to 
impart my Ego, though undoubtedly I find or 
ought to find satisfaction in the act of im- 
parting. 

Through the Sign therefore the Ego imparts 
most of what it has realized within itself to 
other Egos who therein acquire what has gone 
before ; thus the race is continually receiving 
the spiritual treasures of the ancestors and 
transmitting them with increase to posterity. 
The Sign, accordingly, binds together not only 
individuals in society, but generation with gen- 
eration, the past with the future. That the 
child may gradually obtain the culture of his 
race is possible through the Sign, which is thus 



348 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the grand instrumentality of Education, and 
which is created and employed by the Ego for 
self-expression, for impartation to others, and 
acquisition by others. 

The Sign "will accordingly develop a movement 
toward making itself more perfect as a means 
of communication, wherein we discern again the 
process of the Ego, seeking to create a com- 
pletely adequate medium of self-expression and 
also of impartation. 

A threefold movement we may here observe 
and designate in advance, to be developed in the 
following order: — 

I. The Natural Sign, for which the Ego era- 
ploys the immediate object (event, fact, deed), 
untransformed, taken from its own (the Ego's) 
direct environment. The Ego, seeing this object 
as Sign, declares the Thing signified by it, both 
the Sign and the Thing signified being parts or 
phases of the same objective process., whether 
in the physical or the social world. Thus the 
Meaning lies outside of the Form, but in the 
same process, which process the Ego merely 
reproduces through its experience and knowl- 
edge. 

II. The Artificial Sign, in which the Ego still 
employs the immediate object, but changes it, 
transforming it both in Meaning and in Form 
from the natural state, in order to express its 
own (the Ego's) Meaning, which is thus no 



IMAGINATION. 349 

longer outside but inside the object. This is the 
stage of separation, inasmuch as the subjective 
Meaning of the Ego in the Sign is consciously 
separated from the objective Meaning of the 
latter as a thing of nature. 

III. The Universal Sign, in which the Ego 
transfigures the immediate object into its own 
Form, so that the outer bears the direct impress 
of the inner, giving the process thereof by means 
of the human voice. Meaning and Form are no 
longer alien to each other, but are in unity, un- 
folding into the Word, Sign of Signs, the most 
adequate utterance of the Ego. 

(For illustrations of these three kinds of 
Signs, see below in the special development of 
each.) 

It is manifest that the movement of the Sign 
is toward the perfection of intercommunication 
between man and man. In the natural Sign 
there is a rigid element of externality, which is 
transformed and partially overcome in the artifi- 
cial Sign, though this still remains spatial. 

But in speech the rigidity of the Sign begins to 
relax, it moves and becomes pliant. Speech is 
the plastic material in which the process of the 
Ego can impress itself as a process, being in 
Time. The Sign must always have some physical 
element as the bearer of the communication 
between Ego and Ego; but this physical element 
must be more and more refined till it becomes 



350 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

responsive to the subtlest turns of the Ego, that 
is, supremely impressionable. Thus the Sign is 
truly the medium of exchange between mind and 
mind. 

I. The sensuous object in man's environment 
is seized immediately by the Ego and transformed 
into a Sign, which may in a general way be 
named the natural Sign. The whole Sense-world 
thereby is made over into a Sign-world through 
the Ego, which supplies the process from the one 
to the other, for nature cannot recognize its own 
process, while the Ego can ; indeed just that is 
the characteristic thing about the Ego. 

When I go forth into the free air, I look up at 
the sky and behold a cloud which I at once trans- 
form into a Sign, saying: " That is an indica- 
tion of rain." What is here the rapid act 
of my mind? I connect the present object 
with a future result, which connection springs 
from my experience of the past. The sensuous 
object before me, yonder cloud, is the occasion 
of my completing in my mind the whole meteor- 
ological process, of which it is but one link, but 
which lies ideally in my Ego. Moreover the Ego 
is itself inherently process and hence takes up 
the process of nature ; in fact, that is just the 
way it grasps nature. Thus the present object or 
phenomenon is transmuted into a Sign, connect- 
ing present with both past and future ; the Ego 
from the one present fact completes the total 



IMAGINATION. 351 

process, of which this one fact becomes the 
Sign. 

Hence the Ego looking out upon all exter- 
nality — things, events, experiences — has to 
transform them into Signs, which suggest the 
total process of which they are but a present 
partial manifestation. Thus the Ego begins to 
know the object, in fact, the whole external world 
in a new way. In Sense-perception the object 
was simply known as present in Space and Time ; 
in Memory it was known as the image of some- 
thing past; but in the Sign the object projects 
itself into the future also where its counter- 
part (the thing signified) is revealed to the Ego 
in the form of an image. The cloud now seen 
and often seen before suggests the total process 
in the coming rain. But the Sign can also refer 
to the past directly: " This wet ground is a 
Sign that it rained last night; " so we say, still 
completing the process ideally from the one real 
fact. 

But there is not merely a seen world of Signs, 
hearing too has its sphere in this work, and there 
rises a heard world of Signs. A clap of thunder 
has also its indication along with the visible 
cloud. All noises in the street or in nature stir 
the Ego to reach out and take up their causes ; 
that rumble I know to come from a railroad train 
or a wagon. Thus the Sound-world we convert 
into a Sign-world in many ways. The other 



352 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

senses, besides sight and hearing, furnish their 
contribution of Signs ; that is, they become the 
basis for a process of the Ego. 

Thus all sensuous nature which environs man 
becomes full of Signs, prognostications, sugges- 
tions, for each thing interlinks with other things 
past, present and future, in a chain of causation, 
which chain must be given by the process of the 
Ego, and is finally nothing but a mental chain, 
with one link real and the rest ideal. 

The environing Sense-world which is made by 
the Ego into a Sign- world without changing the 
external object may be looked at, first as the cor- 
poreal organism (the human body), secondly as 
the mundane organism (external nature), thirdly 
ns the institutional organism (the social order). 
All these furnish an environment of objects of 
sensation which can become Signs. 

1. The human organism, which is the most 
immediate and intimate environment of the Ego, 
is full of Signs. Primarily all its physical 
processes have outward indications; the doc- 
tor calls them symptoms — two things, 
usually an outer and an inner, come together, 
and one is the Sign of the other. Diagnosis 
is a knowing through Signs. The pulse, the eye, 
sometimes the lower lip and possibly the finger 
nails may indicate what is going on within the 
organism . Then the gesture, the look, the twitch 
are significant, Signs which are in their way a 



IMAGINATION. 353 

communication. Best of Signs, however, is the 
human Deed for revealing character, wherein the 
Ego shows its true outward counterpart. 

The Ego can imagine a process or connection 
where there is none, and so make a Sign which 
has no reality. At this point arises the realm 
of delusion, which is so common in reference to 
the body, especially its ailments. The hypochon- 
driac and the valetudinarian are mainly occupied 
with false Signs about themselves. 

The body with its senses is the grand highway 
to the external world, to which we now pass. 

2. On every side we are environed by natural 
phenomena, which are phases of some physical 
process. It may be truly said that all nature 
surrounds man with Signs, which he has to 
interpret hourly, daily, yearly during his life. 
His success largely depends upon the truth of his 
interpretation. First are the weather Signs 
which concern his outermost environment. 
The farmer and the hunter, who live in such 
close intimacy with nature, often become very 
skillful in forecasting the season. But we all 
have to do a little of the same in spite of the 
fact that there is a meteorological bureau. 

A good deal of science is an interpretation of 
Signs. The geologist sees a fossil plant; at 
once he supplies the process which produced it, 
the climate, the landscape, the physical con- 
ditions. These grooves cut into the rock are the 

23 



354 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Sign of a glacier, of an ice age long since passed 
away. A tooth becomes a Sign, to the pal- 
aeontologist, of the whole animal, its size, its 
habits, its climatic environment. The scientist 
must of course have this far-off process ideally 
stored up in his Ego; thus he apperceives the 
single object which becomes to him a Sign of the 
totality. But the untrained Ego simply per- 
ceives a scratch on a stone, an old tooth or 
bone, and straightway forgets the whole matter; 
to him they are not Signs. 

The ignorant man is aware, however, that he 
dwells in a vast Sign-world, which has meaning, 
is a phase of some process. Hence his tendency 
to make the phenomenon of nature into a Sign, 
even though he has to imagine what it signifies. 
The comet is a sign of a bad harvest, of political 
revolution, of the end of the world; the cricket 
in the wall portends death. Through the Sign a 
mighty deluge of superstition, fraud and delusion 
is poured upon humanity, especially the hum- 
bler portion. The Ego must believe in Signs ; 
if it be ignorant, then it is their victim; but if 
it know the full process, then it can employ the 
Sign as a grand means of foresight, as well as 
of knowledge. The scientific Ego has to have 
its Sign as well as the unscientific; both have 
faith in a Sign-world though they treat it differ- 
ently. 

The prophetic Ego may also read in the occur- 



IMAGINATION. 355 

rences of nature great social upheavals, but that 
is a kind of poetic expression, in which poet and 
prophet are one (vates has both meanings). The 
natural occurrence is no longer a phase of the 
process, but simply a vehicle of utterance which 
the Ego employs for denoting something deeper 
than the physical process, namely the institu- 
tional or social. 

3. The institutional world, which also environs 
the Ego, has its events which the Ego 
may behold as Signs. Goethe has declared that 
the affair of the "Diamond Necklace'' por- 
tended to him the French Revolution, being a 
Sign whose complete movement included 
that grand social upheaval. To many people 
both at the North and at the South John Brown's 
raid was the Sign of the mighty conflict approach- 
ing. Great events of History not only cast their 
shadows before, but have actual heralds announc- 
ing in Signs what is coming. These are what 
are often called in ordinary speech " the Signs 
of the Times," events which have a prophetic 
element in them indicating great national or 
world-historical changes. Constantine is said to 
have seen a cross in the sky with the inscription, 
In hoc signo vince; one thing is certain, he saw 
the cross as the Sign of the Time. What signi- 
fies the recent Chinese-Japanese war in Universal 
History? Or the conflict between Labor and 
Capital? Signs, Signs they are, which each one 



356 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of us seeks to interpret by beholding them as a 
phase of a grand process to be unfolded in the 
future. In our own little neighborhood we watch 
the Signs, political, commercial, even domestic. 
Who will be the next Congressman or the next 
President ? What are the Signs of a good year for 
business ? Which of us will she marry ? Thus we 
all seek to prognosticate the future fact, connect- 
ing it in a process, from the fact before us. 

The old Greeks and Romans, before under- 
taking any enterprise of moment, were accus- 
tomed to watch the flight of birds, or to inspect 
the entrails of slaughtered animals, in order to 
find Signs of the purpose of the Gods. Those 
ancient peoples were conscious of living in a 
World-Order, which had them and their deed 
in hand ; they knew that they were a part of the 
process, and they sought some indication of the 
nature of their part. Hence they were always 
looking for omens, intimations, foreshadowings; 
they dwelt in a Sign-world which to them was 
a manifestation of the Divine Order. 

The next thing is that the Ego puts its own 
meaning into the omen, which it interprets 
according to insight. The sacrifices were at 
first unfavorable at the battle of Plataeae, then 
they suddenly became favorable, just at the right 
moment. 

II. The Ego, putting what meaning it chooses 
into the physical object, converts it into an arti- 



IMAGINATION. 357 

ficial SigQ. This differs from the natural Sign 
just considered, inasmuch as therein the Ego 
accepts the physical object in its native meaning, 
but adds the process, whereby it becomes a Sign. 
But now the Ego changes the meaning of the 
object and puts its own into the same, still pre- 
serving the outward form, which is the Sign. In 
the first case, the object is not changed in itself, 
but through its relations; in the second case, the 
object is changed in itself, the Ego will tamper 
both with its Meaning and Form. 

The oak may be regarded as a natural Sign 
when it indicates a certain kind of soil, in which 
it grows, or a certain climate; it may be regarded 
as an artificial Sign, when it is a landmark, or a 
heraldic designation ; still further, it may be used 
as a natural Symbol when it signifies strength. 
One naturally connects the oak with human 
might i but the connection between an oak and 
a landmark is wholly the act of the Ego. The 
pentegram ( Drudenfuss)^ being composed of two 
triangles, one on top of the other, may suggest 
the Trinity, of which it was a medieval Symbol ; 
but in certain parts of Germany it is the Sign of 
beer, having been thus translated out of its first 
meaning by the Ego of the German beer-drinker. 

In the artificial Sign there will be a process of 
the Ego, which will crowd out more and more 
the physical import of the object. At first the 
physical Form will be retained, but the Ego will 



358 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

put into the same its own Meaning. Then tbe 
Ego, after having changed the Meaning, will 
change the Form, that is, will transform the same 
into a different object externally. Finally the 
Ego, having made its own individual Signs, will 
begin to order them into systems for its own end. 
1. The physical shape is retained without 
change, but a wholly new meaning is put into it 
by the Ego. The rose may be considered to 
have a symbolic touch when it indicates love, 
or passion, or even majesty ; but when it is used 
as a blazon in heraldry it is a Sign. The White 
and Red Roses stood for the Houses of York and 
Lancaster in English History — a meaning which 
has no natural connection with those objects. 
In like manner, various flowers have been used 
as Signs in Art, Religion, Poetry; the entire 
flowery kingdom has been made to speak a kind 
of language. Peoples have their national flower, 
as the Irish the shamrock and the Scotch the 
thistle; we, Americans, tried to select our floral 
representative some years ago. For a similar 
purpose animals are used, as the lion of St. 
Mark or St. Jerome, or of Great Britain ; birds 
in particular have found favor, as the eagle, 
the dove, the peacock, though they all 
may have a strand of natural sj^mbolism, which 
suggests their counterparts in human character. 
The names of fox, dog, ass are applied to man 
with the emphasis on the symbolic element, and 



IMAGINATION. 359 

the famous poem of Reynard is an epic of 
animals acting the part of persons without 
renouncing beasthood. 

The same physical object may be used with 
various shades of symbolism. The rainbow is 
the poetic symbol of Hope (so employed by 
Goethe, see Faust's Monologue, at the beginning 
of Faust, Part II. ) It is an artificial Sign, as 
used in the Hebrew account of the Deluge, to 
which it is there made to pertain. It may be also 
a natural Sign when it is taken as a harbinger of 
the total process of which it is one phase; thus 
it indicates that the Sun is shining through rain- 
drops. Color has also its artistic symbolism and 
it may be used as an artificial Sign, as the na- 
tional colors, the color of a party or a class or 
a society. The cloud which we have already 
employed as the simplest and most imme- 
diate natural Sign when it indicates rain, may 
be used likewise as a poetic Symbol for 
obscurity or mystery, and in the well-known 
passage of Scripture which speaks of a cloud by 
day and a pillar of fire by night, the cloud is 
rather the artificial Sign, though the symbolizing 
fancy can play it into deeper significations. 

Language gives us a hint in the expression: 
What does this thing signify? The verbal pur- 
port is : Of what is this thing made the Sign ? 
Some such question we ask of everything in 
nature and in mind; we have to regard objects, 



360 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

events, deeds, as not simply standing alone and 
by themselves, but as Signs, which in one way 
or other point to the process eternally going on 
in the world and involving all things. Again we 
must recollect that the Ego is just the process 
grasping the process, and hence must create the 
Sign. 

Thus the Ego puts its own Meaning into the 
physical Form ; but it likewise makes over the 
shapes of nature to suit its own purpose. The 
plant and the animal, in heraldry for instance, 
are often changed, transformed, mythologized, 
as the tree of Paradise and the unicorn and 
winged dragon. So we pass to the next. 

2. The shape of the physical object is wrought 
over anew and made into a Sign; the Form is 
transformed in order to express the new Mean^ 
ing. Great is the variety of this transformation 
of Nature, running through all its kingdoms, 
mineral, vegetable, animal. We take a stone and 
cut it into a seal which stands for our very per- 
son, our promise ; it is truly our signature. 
Some colored strips of muslin are sewed together, 
the whole becomes a flag, which is a Sign of 
Nationality, for which we lay down our lives. 
The most revered of all Signs is that of the 
Cross, which has become the distinctive Sign of 
Christendom and of the Occident. Thus we all 
in one way or other deeply participate in this 
transformed Sign-world; man can share in the 



IMAGINATION, 361 

movements of his race, and can associate with 
his fellowman spiritually by means of Signs 
alone. 

In ordinary life we need but look around us 
with some attention in order to observe how 
completely we live in an environment of arti- 
ficial Signs made by the Ego; whole days are 
thus transformed, for example, Decoration Day, 
Fourth of July. There is the outer vesture of 
the man, as a uniform, a livery, a coat of arms, 
as clothes generally, costumes of all sorts* from 
king to peasant, from Orient to Occident. 
This subject took the fancy of Carlyle, and from 
it sprang that strange symbolic book known as 
Sartor Resartus or the Philosophy of Clothes. 
Innumerable badges, emblems, marks designate 
groups, classes, and societies of men. All 
jewelry is a kind of Sign. Inns are still 
named after their Signs in certain countries, 
and also places of amusement ; formerly such 
was perhaps always the case ; who can forget the 
Mermaid Tavern and the Globe Theater, both 
having their visible Signs? Audible Signs too 
may be mentioned in passing; what is the noise 
made on the Fourth of July but a Sign ? The 
bell is a great maker of heard Signs, joy, sor- 
row, fire, time for dinner, time for church. How 
many indications are given by the whistle, from 
that of man to that of the factory and railroad 
train? The drum, the trumpet, the fog-horn 



362 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

make Signs to others. Thus we dwell in a vast 
sound-ocean, as it were at the bottom of it, on 
the earth. The Ego wraps itself up in sound 
and sends itself oft' with its message to distant 
ears through the wayes of this sound-ocean. 
The Ego with its Meaning is the kernel, the rest 
is the shell. 

In such fashion we may realize to ourselves that 
we are living in a Sign-world seen and heard, 
created by the Ego of man as an important 
element of his spiritual abode. Yet this Sign- 
world is organized within itself, as we see by the 
following. 

3. The single artificial Signs are brought into 
a system by the Ego for the more complex kinds 
of communication. The single Sign imparts the 
single fact or thought ; still, facts and thoughts 
are not isolated, but are in an order; hence the 
Signs also assume the form of an order. In such 
a connection the Sign is often called the Signal, 
and the signal service has an important place in 
certain departments of human activity. 

Perhaps the British navy has the completest 
system of Signals, employing many Signs of 
diverse forms and colors, but especially the 
semaphore (sign-bearer), which is a post with 
two arms ; by means of these it spells words at 
a distance, and thus communicates with other 
ships. By night flashing Signals are used 
with an alphabet of points and lines, 



IMAGINATION. 363 

like the telegraphic alphabet of Morse ; even 
the fog horn is made to talk by means of 
an alphabet of sounds, long and short. The 
army also has its system of Signals, made 
principally by flags waving from hill-tops. The 
fire Signals from mountain to mountain, telling 
of an invading foe, are famous from antiquity. 
The railroad train in our time is governed in its 
movements through Signals both seen and heard 
by day and by night. 

Under this head may be considered the many 
systems of Signs which characterize the secret or- 
ganizations so common among men. The Ma- 
sonic Fraternity is the oldest and best known, 
and perhaps the most symbolical. Grips, ges- 
tures, pass-words and other special Signs bind 
the society together as well as separate its mem- 
bers from the rest of the world. Such Signs, 
therefore, are limited in their use, their ability 
to communicate is very imperfect; they belong 
to the brotherhood of the few, not to the brother- 
hood of man, and they can only be for a restricted 
purpose. Hence arises the demand for a more 
universal means of communication between man 
and man. This is the human voice laden with 
some content of the Ego, which two elements 
produce the word. 

The Sign, as hitherto unfolded, is still exter- 
nal, fixed, rigid, is a physical object, transformed 
or not. It still has too much externality to be 



364 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the pliant vehicle of the process of the Ego. In 
the system of connected Signs the Ego is seeking 
imperfectly to realize its process, but they fall 
asunder, and cannot reproduce its unity. The 
Neapolitan may express much with his gestures 
and grimaces, but they come short of any clear 
utterance of the inner spirit of man. The artifi- 
cial Sign, though it be audible, is single, limited, 
and arises from an external object, as the sound 
of the bell. In general, the sign must now be 
made fluid, must be thrown into tones and become 
a mere flatus vocis, losing its separate, outer, 
rigid shape. After being cast into the melting- 
pot, the whole Sign-world can be remoulded into 
new external shapes. 

III. We pass accordingly to the Universal 
Sign, in which the Form and the Meaning be- 
come united and harmonious, no longer standing 
opposed to each other, as in the Artificial Sign. 
We may say that the natural object, here the sound 
of the human voice, is transfigured by the Ego 
into the Form of itself, and so is most capable of 
reproducing the Meaning of the Ego. This gives 
language, the Sign of Signs, in which all other 
kinds of Signs find their explanation and fulfill- 
ment. In language, the Sign not only explains 
something else different from itself, but also can 
explain itself as Sign. It is self -defining, turns 
back upon itself like the Ego, and not only un- 
folds itself, but also the Self as such. The 



IMAGINATION. 365 

spoken word, simply as spoken, as a Form, bears 
the image of the Ego. We shall try to illustrate 
these statements by looking at some of the 
phenomena of language. 

The Ego seizes upon the sound of itself which 
is given out by its own body through the vocal 
organs, as the best vehicle for self-utterance, 
being altogether the most flexible instrument for 
such a purpose. It can control this sound, put- 
ting into the same its difference or its continuity, 
breaking up the same into special tones, syllables, 
words, and then uniting them into its own pro- 
cess. Hence the sound of the human voice gives 
the most complete response to the movement of 
the Ego. 

Undoubtedly the completest of all Signs is 
language. I produce the physical sound of my 
voice and load it with my meaning, with my Ego, 
it passes through the intervening distance and 
reaches } ; ou, in whose brain it unloads its con- 
tent, and you get what I send. I have commun- 
icated my thought, my inmost Self to you; the 
medium is speech, the succession of sound-waves 
starting from my vocal organs. 

The primal fact about these sound-waves 
of the voice is that they bear in themselves, 
in their very constitution, the direct impress 
of the Ego. They are articulated, they form 
a chain of vocal links, yet those links are 
joined together into a totality. Every word I 



366 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

utter is made up of vowels and consonants; the 
vowel is a continuous sound which is stopped 
by consonants. There is first, then, the undi- 
vided tone of nature, which is next broken into 
by the consonant, the principle of separation, 
forming vowel and consonant ; thirdly both are 
united in the word, which thus in its outer shape 
manifests the unity of the Ego. The utterance 
of every word, the sound of it apart from its 
meaning, is stamped by the Ego, is the absolutely 
pliant material upon which the Ego impresses 
its own inner process. The human voice is 
then the plastic material of the sculptor, and the 
vocal organs are the implements ; the result is 
human speech, words, which an ancient Greek 
philosopher called speaking statues, applying a 
true image derived from Greek Art. 

The tone as such, which is mere vibration, may 
set the feelings to vibrating in unison ; such is 
the function of music, which is tone organized, 
selected and arranged for a certain purpose, 
namely, to start a certain class of emotions in 
response. But the tone as a series of simple 
vibrations cannot fully express mind, the Ego, 
which must have the separation and the return, 
while tone has pulses, external undulations con- 
tinued in an indefinite series. The tone articu- 
lated and not merely vibrated is the sound-me- 
dium of the Ego in speech; the waves must have 
oneness and make the distinct word, which is 



IMAGINATION. 367 

thus rounded off and complete. The word, as 
already indicated, has division within itself, its 
vowels and consonants are its basis of articula- 
tion ; yet these divisions it brings to unity. 
Thus the very sound of the word is the image of 
the Ego and its process. Man cannot speak ex- 
cept in the form of his Ego, which he utters in 
the sound of his voice, as well as in the meaning 
which he puts into the same. 

It is manifest that the Ego has obtained for 
its Sign an external material which is absolutely 
formable, responsive outwardly to its subtlest 
movement. Hitherto, in the natural and in the 
artificial Sign, in the cloud or in the flag, it has 
had a rigid material; now it has a fluid material, 
responsive, moving with the movement of the 
Ego, reflecting the same in its most delicate 
sinuosities. 

The Universal Sign we have called it, inas- 
much it can be made to express all and itself 
too, inclusive and explanatory of every other 
Sign, and just in this fact imaging the Ego. 
Still even the Universal Sign, since it is a Sign 
and external, will show limits, which are the 
limits of externality. That is, the Spoken 
Word, the Universal Sign, being uttered and 
externalized, will be limited in Space and Time, 
which limits the Ego, in accord with its trans- 
cendent nature, will chafe against, will seek to 
surmount, and finally will succeed. The Uni- 



368 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

versal Sign, therefore, will have its process, 
that of the Ego, moving toward a completer 
universality by transcending the bounds of 
Space and Time. In like manner back in Sense- 
perception, we recollect that the Ego, in order 
to have a complete percept, had to sweep over 
and take in the spatial and temporal limits of 
the sensuous object. 

The process of the Universal Sign (language) 
in coming more completely to itself, that is, to 
its universality, falls into three stages which may 
be given as follows : — 

1st. The Universal Sign as spoken; thus it 
moves in a succession and gives therein the 
immediate process of the Ego, but as fleeting in 
Time and confined in Space. That is, the spoken 
Word belongs only to the present moment a 
little prolonged, and to the present locality a 
little extended, being limited to the Now and the 
Here, to the immediate Present of both Time 
and Space. Such are the primal spatial and 
temporal limits of Speech, which the Ego pro- 
ceeds inherently to transcend. 

2d. The Universal Sign as pictured, written 
and printed ; the moving temporal Word is now 
externalized and fixed in a spatial shape, freed 
of its immediate connection with the human 
voice ; thus it can be borne beyond its natural 
limits in the Now and the Here ; it is transmis- 
sible in Time and transferable in Space. 



IMAGINATION. 369 

But the Ego comes to regard just this exter- 
nality and spatial fixity of the Universal Sign as 
a new limit, as alien to its own free movement, 
the Ego being internality and the process in 
itself. This separation it will seek to overcome, 
uniting its own immediate internal act with the 
transcending of the external limits of Space and 
Time. 

3d. The Universal Sign spoken and written 
by the Ego in its natural limits of Space and 
Time (in the Here and the Now), is picked up 
and carried beyond those limits by an elemental 
power — electricity chiefly — harnessed and 
working through mechanical contrivances — 
the Telephone, Telegraph and Phonograph. 
Thus the human voice is getting to speak directly 
through Space and down Time. 

Manifestly the entire sense-world is to be 
turned into sound, is to be made over into the 
tones of the human voice, thereby becoming a 
spoken Sign, which is the Word. Yonder tree 
I behold as a percept, I recall it as an image, 
I transform this image into a sound which is the 
Sign of that tree to me and to others, and is 
universal, applicable to all trees. Thus every 
external thing is to be named, is to be made 
over into a vocal tone, and thereby universalized, 
whereof the system is language. 

Let us again bring before us the sweep of the 
vocal Sign ; it moves from the immediate limits 

24 



370 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYCEOSIS. 

of the voice in Time and Space, through its fixity 
in external forms — picture, writ, print, to the 
transcending of the natural limits of the voice, 
as well as of the fixed Sign. Thus the Ego in 
accord with its own inherent character, is per- 
petually pushing the Sign beyond the bounds of 
Space and Time, in order that this Sign may 
obtain a complete universality, not merely in 
Meaning or internally, but also in Form or ex- 
ternally, whereb} r this Form becomes itself the 
ima^e of the Ego. 

The Sign or the Completed Symbol we have 
already designated as the third stage of the 
Imagination or the Symbol-making activity of 
mind. The Ego starts with the implicit Symbol, 
or the first separation of Form and Meaning, not 
unfolded, not conscious, passes through the 
Explicit Symbol, in which the separation into 
Form and Meaning is wrought over, and now 
comes to the Sign in which the Ego takes com- 
plete possession of the Form and elaborates it, 
till it becomes the adequate material of the 
Ego's process. Thus the Ego at last takes up 
its own movement into its Symbol ; at first, in 
the Implicit Symbol, this process lay outside of 
the Symbol, which was the single fixed Form 
( say the picture of the dog) holding in itself im- 
plicitly the Meaning. But the Symbol in speech 
now symbolizes its own process. 

1. The Ego in the first place moulds the sound 



IMAGINATION. 371 

of the human voice into the process of itself, 
which sound thus formed is the articulate word. 
This moves, accordingly, in Time, not being fixed 
in Space, for it must express the process of the 
Ego, just through the form of articulation. 

The next important fact of language is that 
the Ego pours its own self with all its belongings 
into this articulated form of the human voice, of 
which, however, it has first to get possession. 
The total content of the Ego, its images, per- 
cepts, feelings, are to be expressed into the word. 
Everything seen or heard, everything which comes 
from the outer world into the mind, is destined 
to be transformed into speech and uttered 
(outered), whereby it becomes again an object 
in the sense- world to be heard by others. 

The development of language, which is essen- 
tially the Ego moulding itself into sounds of 
the human voice, goes through three stages, 
the exclamatory, the imitative, and the meta- 
phorical. 

The exclamatory utterance is the most imme- 
diate, instinctive, natural of all utterances. The 
outer, the voice responds directly to the inner, 
the feeling. It is often merely a prolonged 
vowel, as oh, ah; both pain and pleasure find 
vent in these sounds. Then there is the inter- 
rupted exclamation in which the consonant has 
its place. The affection of the sentient organism 
works immediately upon the voice, which thus 



372 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

becomes a direct echo of certain bodily condi- 
tions. In like manner the voice gives its 
response to emotional states. 

In the imitative stage of language the expres- 
sion is not exclamatory, not immediate; anew 
element enters which produces a separation into 
sound and meaning. The Ego copies the sound 
of nature in the sound of the voice, it imitates, 
it places itself between two sounds, namely its 
own copy and the sound copied. The latter is 
identified with the former, and thus becomes the 
means of recalling the object which makes the 
sound. The word moo is recognized as the 
bellow of a cow, of which it is an imitation; 
thereby it becomes the name of a cow to the 
child, and to the primitive man also. When the 
Ego imitates, its sound means the thing imitated, 
and is the first name thereof. The debt of early 
speech to imitation is very great ; the Ego imi- 
tates the sounds of nature around itself and 
gradually transforms them into language. 

The third stage of language we may call the 
metaphorical, in which the word passes through 
various forms of symbolism till it becomes the 
Sign. In the imitative stage just mentioned, the 
Ego copied the sound of nature and made this 
copy mean the thing copied, which thus has a 
name. But in its metaphorical activity the 
Ego comes back to itself, and makes the name 
originally taken from the thing of nature mean 



IMAGINATION. 373 

some traitor phase of itself. The name is trans- 
ferred from its physical to its mental significance. 
The Ego first imitates nature by the voice 
and forms the word ; then it takes this imitated 
sound or the word, and uses it to express 
the spiritual act which most nearly resembles 
the physical act, thing, or event. The Ego 
thus transforms nature into an expression of 
itself. The word light means primarily the physi- 
cal object, then it is applied to a corresponding 
mental fact; there is the transference from the 
outer to the inner sun of illumination. More 
and more, however, the word becomes the 
arbitrary Sign, losing its sensuous meaning, and 
being made over into the pure instrument of the 
Ego. Spirit meant originally breath or wind, 
an invisible power of nature; but in English it 
has passed through its primitive as well as its 
metaphorical stage, and has only its internal 
significance. 

The Ego has now transformed the natural 
sound of the human voice into a Sign which is 
the most adequate utterance of itself. We have 
noticed that the word has to pass through various 
stages of symbolism, till it reaches the Sign, in 
which the sensuous meaning quite drops out of 
view. 

2. The Ego, having internalized the spoken 
word and made it the bearer of a purely internal 
meaning, will next externalize the word, taking 



374 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

it out of the movement of Time which is involved 
in speech, and fixing it in Space. The spoken 
word passes over, through the necessary process 
of the Ego, into the written, pictured, and printed 
word. Or, the Ego having made the spoken 
word its own, having identified the same with it- 
self, must other it, make it different from itself 
and throw it into externality. 

The spoken word being in Time, is transitory, 
so it is taken out of Time and fixed in a special 
form which makes it permanent, if not eternal. 
Moreover, the spoken word has a spatial limit; 
there is what may be called a vocal periphery 
at whose center the man stands speaking, but 
beyond which the voice cannot reach. This limit 
the Ego must transcend. 

There are in the main three ways in which the 
Ego makes speech objective and fixed, and so 
saves it, to a degree, from Time and death. 
These are picture-writing, alphabetic writing and 
printing. All three appeal to sight, and not to 
hearing, as speech does ; the spoken word, when 
put in this spatial shape, is transferable to 
another place and transmissible to another age. 
Thus the physical bounds of the spoken word in 
Space and Time are broken through. 

These three ways of speech externalizing itself 
show a grand development of the ages, in which 
the process of the Ego manifests itself. The 
first picture-writing passes through the hierogly- 



IMAGINATION. 375 

phic into an alphabet, which drops the picture 
and represents the sounds of the human voice — a 
most important step in the advance of the world's 
culture. The alphabet reflects the movement of 
mind in the vocal tones, and thus can give the 
process of the Ego, while the picture takes 
directly the object of sense, which is found to be 
too rigid a material for the impress of speech. 
From alphabetic writing, which is done with the 
pen, to printing, which is a writing with types 
(typography), is also a great step in the commu- 
nication between man and man. The print is 
writ universalized, the type represents many 
single acts of writing. The material type, at 
first spatially fixed, is therein movable and com- 
binable, of course in external fashion. 

Now just this externality the Ego at last feels as 
a limit and starts toward removing it in some 
way. The crystallized shapes of writ and print 
must again be made fluid in order to give a new 
response to the Ego. 

3. The spoken word thrown into fixed spatial 
forms — pictured, written, printed — finds at 
last in these forms, though at first they gave a 
new freedom, a fetter, a limitation which has to 
be transcended afresh. A new medium is found 
for carrying the voice far beyond the vocal peri- 
phery which is drawn round the voice by the air; 
this new medium is electricity, which, in the 
Telephone, enables man to speak across the 



376 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ocean, possibly around the globe. In like man- 
ner the Telegraph carries writing around the 
globe by means of electrical transmission. 
Finally the Phonograph writes the voice, so that 
it can be reproduced after its cessation, thus 
making the spoken word speak always and every- 
where, transferring it through Space and trans- 
mitting it through Time. 

All these instrumentalities are triumphs of the 
Ego in removing the limits put by nature upon 
communication ; as usual, that very nature is 
harnessed and is made to remove her own 
obstruction. They have been invented and 
applied within the memory of living men, and 
they are themselves a Sign of the Time. The 
more or less fixed externality of writing and 
print gets rid of the movement of the Ego, 
divorces itself from the individual ; we read the 
types which give and are the general and not 
the particular. But these recent inventions seek 
to restore the individual element in all commun- 
ication; there is a return to the immediate Ego, 
the Telephone conveys the man's spoken word 
directly, the Telegraph may convey his writing, 
and the Phonograph preserves the individuality 
of the speaker's voice. This stress upon the 
side of the individual is a true characteristic of 
our age. 

Hieroglyphic writing belongs to the language 
of the image, alphabetic writing to the language 



IMAGINATION. 377 

of thought. When a people begin to think, that 
is, when they rise above the imaginative stage, 
they create or borrow an alphabet. This alpha- 
bet must, of course, be mastered by every human 
being who wishes to give or receive a communi- 
cation. The child must learn it, this wonderful 
Sign of speech ; the first act possibly of mem- 
orization is the naming and identifying of the 
letter A. The learning of an alphabetic language 
is a rising from imaging to thinking, which the 
primitive race passed through, and which the 
child must pass through again. The signs as 
letters are not a picture of the object, but they 
exist for its meaning. Learning to spell, to 
read, and to write is a marvelous discipline out 
of savagery, a grand means of culture, as well as 
of spiritual communication. 

Observations on the Symbol. 

The Imagination, which we have designated 
and unfolded as the Symbol-making activity of 
the mind, has now run its course through 
what we have called the Natural, the Artistic, 
and the Pure (completed) Symbol. It is the 
divisive stage of Representation, since it turns 
upon the division of the Image into Form and 
Meaning, which division, however, goes through 
the process of the Ego and thus reveals the 
Psychosis. The Natural (or Implicit) Symbol 



378 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

showed the immediate unity of Form and Sym- 
bol, as in the case where the picture of the horse 
and the real horse are not yet fully differentiated 
by the Ego. The Artistic (or Explicit) Symbol 
shows the separation of Form and Meaning in 
which both elements are wrought over in a 
variety of ways, yet without losing the natural 
purport of the Symbol. Finally, the Pure or 
Completed Symbol quite casts out the natural side 
of the Meaning, and keeps the pure Meaning of 
the Ego, though, of course, the physical Form is 
retained. Thus the Ego moves from its uncon- 
scious, implicit stage, which is more or less deter- 
mined from the outside by Nature, through the 
dualistic stage or the struggle between Ego and 
Nature (or Meaning and Form), to the triumph of 
the Ego in the Sign, in which it uses the outer 
world simply to reflect itself. 

It must be confessed that the Symbol has fared 
hard at the hands of modern psychologists. 
Often it is not even mentioned in their books, 
and, as far as we are aware, never receives any 
full treatment. Its place in the movement of 
the individual mind seems not to be distinctly 
apprehended, still less has its place in the move- 
ment of man been duly recognized. Yet it is 
the inner germinal principle which unfolds into 
Art, Poetry, History, above all, Human Speech, 
which is on so many sides intimately connected 
with the psychological process. 



IMAGINATION. 379 

For any adequate treatment of the Symbol, 
we still have to go back to Hegel (^Esthelik 
Band I. Z wetter Theil., jp. 378, et passim). 
As far as we have been able to read, this remains 
the best and most concrete elaboration of the 
Symbol. We have, however, felt ourselves 
compelled to give a good deal wider meaning 
to the term Symbol, than Hegel does, who, in 
our judgment, cramps the usage of the word by 
confining it to what he calls Symbolic Art, and 
making this apply essentially to the Oriental 
form of Art, as contrasted with the Classic and 
Romantic forms of Art. The reader will note 
that with us all Art is Symbol-making, indeed 
all expression of the Ego is primarily symbolic. 
Hegel therefore has little or nothing to say of 
fhe Implicit Symbol, or of the Sign, which, how- 
ever, he touches upon in his very brief Psychol- 
ogy. Still we have no intention here of finding 
fault with the great thinker whose work on this 
subject is indeed epoch-making, and has not yet 
been overtaken by the new psychological move- 
ment. 

2. More surprising still is the neglect of the 
Symbol by educational psychologists. An ex- 
amination of certain recent text-books (not all, 
to be sure, as that were impossible) shows no 
appreciation of it, and hardly the mention of it. 
The Herbartians (this name is given by them- 
selves to themselves) have been our great stimu- 



380 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

lators in educational Psychology, but they seem 
to keep marvel ously shy of the Symbol. Would 
it not be well for them, with their well-known 
energy and ability in exploiting their subjects 
and themselves, to give us a little of this 
finer flour instead of grinding up such an 
awful grist of "apperception" and "correla- 
tion," good things in themselves undoubtedly, 
yet not quite the Universe ? Of the other rather 
noisy school of the present time, that of the 
physiological psychologists, nothing perhaps can 
be reasonably expected, since it is not probable 
that the Symbol will be discovered for a while 
yet in either the white or the gray matter of the 
brain, or be found ensconced in a nerve center or 
brain cell ; especially is such a discovery difficult 
till the psychologist understands what the Sym- 
bol is, and has found out beforehand what he is 
going to find. 

3. This neglect of the Symbol on the part of 
educationists becomes almost startling when we 
consider the fact that the primary branches of 
education (the three R's) deal wholly with the 
Symbol. The infant in its first act of learning 
begins with a Symbol of some kind, and its edu- 
cation is the acquisition and employment of Sym- 
bols. Language spoken, written, printed, is a 
Symbol; the figures of Arithmetic are Symbols. 
Thus the child in learning to speak, to write, to 
cipher, is trained in the use of Symbols ; the 



IMAGINATION. 381 

school is primarily a training to a mastery of the 
Symbol. 

Thus the child has, first of all, to get control 
of the Symbol in order to develop within, and 
become a member of a social order without. It 
has to enter specially the Sign-world, and live 
and communicate therein. This primary Sign- 
world of the child we may classify tentatively, 
for the purpose of a brief survey of the total 
field. 

(1) The voice-sign, which is used in speaking, 
and is organized into language (phonic). 

(2) The letter-sign, which is used in writing 
and printing, and so is the first element in learn- 
ing to read print or writ (graphic or alphabetic). 

(3) The number-sign, whose Form must be 
mastered and whose Meaning must be acquired 
in learning to cipher (mathematic). 

These three Signs of the School (phonic, 
graphic, mathematic), constitute an order which 
may be internally connected. Already we have 
unfolded the voice-sign which is sound laden 
with the meaning of the Ego and thrown into 
Time. Likewise, we have considered previously 
the letter-sign which is the spatial fixing of 
sound (see preceding account of the Sign pas- 
sim). The number-sign expresses quantity, 
wnich is a complete abstraction, on part of the 
Ego, from all sensuous properties of the thing; 
the expression of that abstraction in a Sign is 



382 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the numerical figure, through which the Ego 
begins to deal with itself as the supersensible 
activity, wherein it rises out of the realm of 
the senses. 

It is manifest from looking over the first 
branches of a school curriculum that the Sym- 
bol, or more particularly the Sign, is the primal 
element of Education. 

4. The Symbol, however, reaches far beyond 
the school proper, has in fact an almost inex- 
haustible subject-matter, though the order of 
this can be and must be compassed by the Ego 
seeing therein its own process. 

The kinds of Symbolism, the styles thereof, 
are very diverse, differing acording to the nation, 
the age, and also the individual. The most strik- 
ing general distinction is that between Oriental 
and Occidental Symbolism, both of which have 
been characterized and ordered in the preceding 
account. The Symbols of the Hebrew Bibles, 
how varied, subtle, and abounding! The study 
of these biblical Symbols is important both for 
religion and literature; their proper ordering 
and unfolding would be an interesting chapter in 
that new book on the psychology of the Bible 
which, if not written, is certainly writable. 

In the Occident the individual writer often 
develops his own peculiar style of Symbolism. 
Dante is the greatest of all the Symbolists; a 
study of the Divine Comedy compels the study 



IMAGINATION. 383 

of Symbolism, which is the very life-blood of 
that poem. Wholly different is the symbolic 
manner of Goethe, especially in the Second Part 
of Faust, in which the poet has created, one can 
say, a symbolic world of his own out of ante- 
cedent materials, by drawing upon Classic, 
Christian, and Teutonic Mythology, as well as 
by introducing a great variety of lesser forms, 
such as allegory, personification, epigram, even 
down to the riddle and pun. A new application 
of the Symbol for educating the child was made 
by Froebel, who therein went back to the root 
of human culture, and reconstructed a fresh 
symbolic world for the beginners, the little ones, 
by means of his Gifts and Occupations, and more 
particularly by his Play-Songs (Mutter-und-Kose- 
Lieder). Thus the Symbol is directly applied to 
Education, which through it is seen to be closely 
allied to Art, Poetry, Religion, all of which seek 
a symbolic expression. Froebel saw the play 
of children to be really a natural Symbol, which 
could be transfigured into a reflection of the spirit 
whereby the child might be elevated into partici- 
pation in the highest and worthiest things of his 
race. Not exactly a poetic symbolist like Dante 
or Goethe, Froebel is the great educational sym- 
bolist ; he sends us back (along with the child) 
to the primordial symbolic act of the Ego, and 
out of that unfolds the education of the human 
being. 



384 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

5. The distinction between Imagination and 
Fancy has been much insisted on, especially in 
Poetics. We may indeed say that there is a 
symbolizing Fancy and a symbolizing Imagina- 
tion. In general, the Fancy takes a prosaic 
(unsymbolic) theme and plays about it in a 
kind of symbolic sport, weaving around it more 
or less externally »many little symbolic flowers ; 
while the Imagination makes the totality, the 
theme itself, a Symbol. 

For instance, we have seen a school report, 
whose content was dead prose, decorated by a 
lively fancy with all sorts of figures and images, 
a mass of green leaves, tendrils, and blossoms 
wreathing a dead trunk. But poetic Imagina- 
tion demands that the trunk be alive first of all. 
So there is a distinction between poems of the 
Fancy and of the Imagination. 

6. Imagination, the Symbol-making power, 
having constructed as its final act the Sign- 
world, gives place to a new sphere. Conceive of 
yourself without a knowledge of this Sign- 
world (or language), a wall encompasses you as 
high as heaven and as deep as the pit. The first 
work of the Ego is the getting possession of the 
Sign-world which environs it. This brings us to 
the new process — Memorization. 



SE C TION TRIED. — MEMOBIZA TION. 

The Ego has made a Sign-world through which 
man communicates with man, and which, there- 
fore, renders a social order possible. Every 
individual Ego is born into this Sign-world, and 
must get possession of it, must use it, and finally 
must create it again. h\ fact the entire sphere 
of the Symbol is for the purpose of communi- 
cation, but we shall keep in mind specially the 
Sign, and indeed the Word, which is the supreme 
manifestation both of the Symbol and the Sign. 

This process of the Ego in mastering the Sign- 
world we shall call Memorization. It is not a 
good term for the purpose, we memorize objects 
in simple Memory, which activity we have al- 
ready considered ; then the word memorizing is 
apt to be misunderstood, being applied mostly 
to the raechnnical phase of Memory. But after 

25 (385) 



386 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

some search and a good deal of waiting, no better 
term comes to the front, and so we shall take it 
and try to make it do its duty in its present 
sphere. First of all, then, Memorization must 
be grasped not simply as a committing to mem- 
ory, though it be that too; it means the internal- 
izing of the whole symbolic world and likewise 
the employing and the producing of the same. 
Every human being at present lives in such a 
symbolic world, and must get control of it, nay, 
must make it; to be sure, it has been made for 
him, but it must also be made over by him. 

Here we shall call to mind the apperceptive 
side to Memorization. The Sense-world we have 
already seen apperceived under the head of 
Apperception; but the Sign-world, our new 
reality, creation of the Ego, we must also see 
apperceived, internalized, ordered. The sensu- 
ous object has been transformed into a Sign 
which is the name, a thing of sound; but the 
Ego must learn to understand the meaning of this 
sound-sign, must internalize the same. That is, 
the Ego must now apperceive an object with both 
Form and Meaning, both of which constitute the 
Symbol, or more particularly, the Word. 

The Memorization of the Sign-world, espe- 
cially of language, is the basis of all communica- 
tion between man and man, as well as of all 
participation in the movement of the race. Let 
us take a common illustration of its process — the 



MEMOBIZATION. 387 

newspaper, which prints all the important mat- 
ters, events, deeds which take place on the globe 
daily. It first transforms the things of sense into 
Signs, which make up its printed page. But in 
order that the Ego get at what lies in these Signs, 
it must not only have learned them previously, 
but also must now reconstitute them, and there- 
by reach the external world. Note, then, the 
process: the journal before you through its staff 
of workers has had to perceive the outer Sense- 
world quite round the globe (occurrences, men, 
actions, in general the news); then it has had 
to transform all this into Signs (print); finally 
the reading Ego takes it up and reproduces that 
entire Sense-world as observed perhaps by hun- 
dreds, of reporters over the earth. To all of 
which the magic key is the knowledge of the 
Signs, which enable every human being to par- 
ticipate in the daily doings, thoughts, feelings of 
total humanity. 

But not only the Present can be thus taken up 
and transferred through the Sign ; the Past is sym- 
bolized and imparted in the same way. A library 
of books is a grand storehouse, a kind of uni- 
versal Memory, holding the contents of many 
minds and of many ages. Through the Sign 
(writing or printing), the fleeting thoughts and 
deeds of men are caught and held fast, and then 
are brought together in this treasury of the Past. 
The Ego, having memorized the Sign, which is 



388 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the magic key, can unlock all the wealth of a 
thousand men's activity scattered through Time, 
and use the same quite as its own. By means of 
the Sign the race gets a Memory in which every 
individual may share, of course through Memori- 
zation of the Sign. 

Great, therefore, is the Sign, the instrumental- 
ity by which man lives the life of his race in the 
Present throughout Space, and by which man 
lives the life of his race throughout Time. 
Thus he is indeed a whole man, realizing the 
ideal end of all individual discipline as well as 
of civilization. 

Man has made the Sign-world, and it bears the 
imprint of his Ego, as God has made the world 
of nature, which bears the imprint of the Divine 
Ego. In Sense-perception, we may recollect, 
the Ego, in cognizing an external object, rose 
to a recognition of the Ego as creator. In 
Memorization, the Ego recognizes the Ego as 
the creator of the Sign, whose Meaning is really 
its own, itself ; the Ego must know the Sign, 
make the Sign, and know itself as maker of the 
Sign, which last is the completion of the present 
sphere. 

As a kind of preparation, let the reader grap- 
ple with the following statement. When the 
Sign ( name or word ) has the Meaning only which 
the Ego has put into it, this Sign (or name) is 
no longer particular nor does it represent any- 



MEMORIZATION. 389 

thing particular, but is universal. The tree (as 
a name) designates all trees, it is a class; but 
tree as an object of vision or an image is par- 
ticular merely. So, when I make a name for 
the particular, I universalize it. For the Sign 
(name) makes the particular thing ^significant ; 
the Ego has put into the outward form its own 
meaning; the sensuous particular tree quite van- 
ishes into the universal tree, or the thought of 
the tree. In naming the tree, the Ego has im- 
posed itself upon the sensuous object and made 
it an idea. Another Ego can recognize the pro- 
cess of Ego in the name, and thus recognize the 
object, the tree. 

Why is the Sign (or name) made by the Ego 
universal, applicable to all trees? Manifestly 
the particular element is set aside, disregarded, 
negated; the Ego has put its own Meaning into 
the thing and made it a Sign ; the Ego thus has 
taken away its distinctiveness, its separation as 
particular, annulling its limit as a sensuous thing. 

The process of Memorization is that the Ego 
reach through the Sign and return to itself as 
object ; the Ego throws off at last even the 
shadow of the Sign, and beholds itself purely. 
It is not only the Meaning, but the Form as well ; 
it not only makes the Sign but knows itself as 
Sign-maker. When the Ego sees itself in the 
object and as the creator thereof, it is thinking — 
it is genetic, universal, creative, or re-creative. 



390 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

When it puts what Meaning it pleases into the 
Sign (tree), it makes the same, hence tree is 
universal, having the creative Ego in it as Sign, 
so that it ideally creates all trees. Tree as 
percept or image is particular, even as outward 
spoken Sign ; but tree as thought or the thought 
of the tree is what creates all trees. 

The sound or word becomes limited or partic- 
ular also, being different in different tongues ; 
accordingly the Signs (names for tree) change, 
but the thought in all these Signs (names) is 
one; to the English, German, French, the 
thought of the tree is the same, creating ideally 
all trees; it is hence generic, universal, while 
the names or signs vary with the limits of the 
nation, though inside these limits the name is 
common, or, as is often said, universal. 

Thus Thought is reached by means of the 
name or sign ; we think in names or words, 
still we must rise out of the simple particular 
word to that which creates it. Language is the 
beautiful temple of imagery and of poetry, but 
it is only a ladder to the heaven of Thought. 
The pure Psychosis of Thinking makes fluid the 
crystallized word and breaks down the limits of 
the image or the symbol. The Ego in Thought 
is self-recognitive, it must recognize its own 
form as the thinking principle ; cognition, or 
implicit Thought, must rise to recognition, or 
explicit Thought. 



MEMOBIZATION. 391 

The preceding remarks are a preliminary dash 
at Memorization, which it is well for the student 
to follow even vaguely, before he makes the 
main ordered attack. As already indicated, this 
sphere of Memorization has also the movement of 
the Ego, which falls into the following stages : — 

I. The Symbol-learning Ego, which is to get 
possession of the world of Symbols, into which 
it is born and which is the condition of itself as 
a social being. 

II. The Symbol-employing Ego, which is to 
utilize the Symbol, especially the Word, by 
speaking and hearing, and thus become in itself 
the complete process of both receiving and im- 
parting — which process always involves the 
reproduction of the Word. 

III. Communication of Ego with Ego and with 
the totality of which it is a member, through 
the Symbol. The community now advances into 
the foreground ; it has to appropriate, and finally 
to create the Symbol or the Word, which becomes 
itself a community or a system of speech. 

The process of Memorization thus manifests 
the Psychosis, being the inherent movement of 
the Ego in the present sphere. The Ego must 
first appropriate the Symbol (or word) immedi- 
ately ; then the Ego uses the same, projecting it 
out of itself into the world, showing itself therein 
divisive, which divisive state is still further man- 
ifested in the speaking and hearing sides of the 



392 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

one Ego and of many Egos; finally these many 
individual Egos, separated and outside of one 
another, are united by Communication into a 
community, and become spiritually one through 
the Symbol or Word. 

Herewith, however, Memorization has run its 
course. The Ego has acquired, employed, and 
created the Sign ; this Sign has also revealed the 
Ego to itself as Sign-maker. The Word has now 
told to the Ego the secret of itself, as it were, say- 
ing : You are the creative principle not only of 
me but also of all that I represent, namely the 
objective world. Having come to such a con- 
sciousness of itself, the Ego gi;asps itself as the 
creative process of the Thing, and therewith 
passes into the realm of Thought. The Word, 
too, has reached its end, having guided the Ego 
to Thought out of the realm of the Image. The 
Word has made the Ego think, though it is not 
itself Thinking. 

I. The Symbol-learning Ego. 

We have already unfolded the Symbolic 
Realm, of which the Ego is now to be seen in 
the process of taking possession. One phase of 
the Symbol is the Sign, with which we wish to 
deal specially at present. Note that this Sign- 
world has been made into a world of things 
existent, not as percepts with their own sensuous 



ME M OBI Z A TION. 3 1) 3 

meaning, but as percepts to which a new mean- 
ing has been assigned by the Ego. Hence it is a 
world very distinct from that of pure Sense-per- 
ception, though it has to be perceived too. 
Every percept in any wise sensed, be it seen, 
heard, even tasted and smelt, has in the present 
sphere a new sense derived from the Ego. Thus 
we all live in a grand symbolic environment 
transformed by the Ego from Nature and mani- 
festing a mental content. Of these Symbols (or 
more definitely, Signs) the most important and 
the one embracing all others essentially is the 
Word, spoken, heard and seen, the unit of speech 
and the vehicle of human intercourse. 

This Word has its origin in many souls, and is 
sprung of their united soul-life, however hu«mble. 
No one man has yet made a living language, which 
is a product of the common consciousness of 
many Egos co-operating, and is just the spiritual 
fruit as well as the image of such co-operation. 
They make something which they use in common, 
mirroring the spiritual medium in which they 
live, by which they communicate with one 
another, and in which they are all one. Into 
this world of word-signs every Ego is placed at 
the start, not in actual possession of it, but with 
the possibility of getting possession. Every 
born child has, first of all, to master it, ere he 
can utter (outer) himself and become a reality, 
ere he can communicate with others, or be himself 



394 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS.' 

communicated with in turn. The separate indi- 
vidual thus overcomes the limits of nature 
imposed upon him by birth, and can associate 
with his fellows in the establishing and the 
perpetuating of a social order. 

Moreover the results of all culture, the gifts 
of those lofty souls who have appeared in the past 
and have transmitted to the future their wisdom 
and character, are treasured in these Signs written 
and printed, even spoken in tradition. The early 
years of life must be spent in mastering these 
Signs, in learning to communicate and to receive 
communication not only from the present but 
also from the past. Thus the child is already 
put in touch with the movement of his race, and 
receives a universal human impulse through the 
channel of the Word. Education turns upon 
the appropriating of Symbols. Speaking begins 
in the household; reading and writing introduce 
the child to the school ; arithmetic also goes back 
to the mastery of Signs. The kindergarten 
makes play symbolic and converts it into a 
grand means of early discipline ; even the infant 
is not to lose his infancy, he must sing and play 
spontaneously yet symbolically, not capriciously, 
not in a chaos but in an order, which is, in gen- 
eral, that of his race's evolution. 

The Symbol-learning Ego, in its process of 
acquiring its content (Symbol, Sign, Word), 
will manifest three stages which we shall call the 



MEMOBIZATIOK. 395 

integrative (immediate), externalized (divisive), 
recognitive (unitary). 

I. The new Ego is placed, let us repeat, in 
a Sign-world of words which must be taught 
to it, in general, by the environing social order. 
The parent gives the first instruction, which is 
soon supplemented by others, till the teacher in 
person appears, in some way supported by 
society just for this work. Thus the knowledge 
of the Sign-world is brought to the Ego from 
outside at first, gradually it is inducted into the 
means of becoming a member of the social 
totality. By no conscious act of will is this mat- 
ter accomplished, it is spontaneous on part of 
the child, who integrates the words as they rise 
before him till he acquires the ability to ex- 
press himself. His Ego must internalize the 
sound-sign (let it be the word horse), and appro- 
priate the same. In Sense-perception he inter- 
nalizes the object horse, from which he must 
pass to the spoken sign, and do the same with 
that. Let us briefly outline the steps of the 
process. 

1. The sensuous object (horse) is given a 
name in the presence of the child, who thereby 
connects immediately the object and the word, or 
the sign and the thing signified. This connec- 
tion develops later into a sentence: this is a 
horse. So all objects of sense, or the important 
ones, in the child's environment are translated 



396 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

into signs spoken by the voice — a sound laden 
with a meaning. Such is the first nexus of 
speech, that between an object of vision, and the 
sound of the voice — the immediate unity of an 
outer Form with an inner Meaning. 

2. The young Ego, having thus taken up and 
internalized the sound along with its content, 
proceeds at once to utter the same sound himself, 
to make it external. Thus the child speaks the 
word, or the sound with its meaning; that is, he 
separates it from himself, and projects it into the 
world; he has to do so, in accordance with the 
divisive character of the Ego. The child cannot 
help expressing himself, but he should be 
directed. The word horse is spoken by the 
parent or teacher, and is appropriated ; then it 
has to be uttered (or outered) ; the power of 
utterance is still further developed by repetition. 
We often say, the child imitates the speech of 
others ; but this imitation is to be traced back to 
the Ego in its separative act. 

3. The word, when uttered now by anybody, 
brings back to the child the image of the object 
which was originally coupled with its sound. 
The absent thing can be thus made present, and 
the Ego begins to receive communication from 
other Egos through the sound-sign ; the word 
spoken restores the sense-world. Moreover, each 
word begins to take its place in an ordered 
whole, and organized language starts into being 



MEMOBIZATION. 397 

for the child or the learning Ego, which not only 
appropriates and utters single words, but com- 
mences to order them, of course after the pattern 
of itself. 

II. The Symbol-learning Ego has so far inte- 
grated the word, which is a Sign with its two 
elements, namely, the spoken sound and what the 
sound signifies; or, we may say that the Ego has 
appropriated the Sign with Form and Meaning in 
immediate unity. But now the Ego begins to 
tear asunder Form and Meaning, which is a much 
deeper separation than that which took place in 
the stage just described wherein the Ego simply 
uttered the word undivided within itself. This 
present separation comes about through mem- 
orizing, hence this stage may also be called the 
recollective (externalized, divisive). 

In the act of memorizing or committing to 
memory the Ego seizes the external name as dis- 
tinct from what this name means, holds it at first 
apart from other names or signs, thus separating 
Form from Meaning, and repeats the Form till 
the latter becomes automatic and empty, and 
quite loses its Meaning for the Ego which is per- 
forming this act. The movement is to external- 
ize completely the Sign and put it under control 
of the Ego without its Meaning. 

The present process is a necessary one for 
the Ego which must separate itself from the 
externality of the Sign or Word, which is its 



398 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

outer Form, in order to get possession of the 
same and thereby become free ; that is, not 
determined from without by the Form but ruling 
it from within. Let us set forth the stages of 
this process. 

1. The Ego becomes conscious of the division 
of the word into Form and Meaning through f or- 
getfulness. It has the word, but cannot remem- 
ber what the word means ; or it has some meaning 
of its own to express, but cannot get the word. 
Thus through the failure of Memory the Ego 
finds the Sign split into its two component ele- 
ments. When I recover the lost Meaning and 
put it back into its Form, I thenceforth remain 
aware that all Signs have this same twofoldness. 

2. The Ego now makes the separation complete 
in this sphere by repeating the Form of the 
word, or its sound-sign till it rises of itself and 
is uttered independent of the Meaning. The 
volitional act of the mind alone is now sufficient 
to bring up the word ; just through this separa- 
tion the Ego has gotten possession of the outer 
Form and recalls it at pleasure ; the Ego directly 
as Will is the master, who is able to invoke the 
word. 

3. But not only single words does the Ego 
empty of content in this way, but a whole series, 
and furthermore it links this series of words 
together, in their externality, so that the same 
runs of itself without the intervention or need 



MEMORIZATION. 399 

of any Meaning. Thus the Ego has gotten 
immediate possession of these Forms, that is, a 
possession not mediated by the Meaning, and can 
reproduce a chain of Signs which is wholly 
devoid of content. But the Ego was itself 
originally this element of Meaning in the Sign 
or Symbol; thus it has completely taken itself 
out of its own Sign, here the word. Such is the 
present separation. 

In learning by heart I train the Meaning out 
of the name or names, though when I read the 
latter, the Meaning comes up to me and is the 
emphatic thing, being really myself which I rec- 
ognize. But when I have committed a poem to 
memory, the words or the outer Forms are the 
matter emphasized. The Meaning at first ignores 
the Word, though present ; then the Word 
ignores the Meaning, quite casting it out. An 
independent chain of Forms with its own sepa- 
rate movement seems to be one side, a chain of 
Meanings the other. 

Thus the Ego which put itself originally into 
the Sign, has quite externalized itself therein 
at present; self-estranged, divided into itself 
and its opposite the Ego appears in this psychial 
act. The Signs which it made and filled with its 
own Meaning it has veritably disemboweled, 
having emptied them of itself and holding them 
outside of itself. Such is the phenomenon 
usually called Mechanical Memory, inasmuch as 



4Q0 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

these outer Forms have merely an external or 
mechanical connection with one another. If 
they are set to moving, they go on like a collec- 
tion of wheels in clockwork ; the words of the 
series, be it a poem or a mere abacadabra, pour 
forth one after the other to the end of the line. 
Still this series has to be started; who is the 
starter? Herewith we come to the next. 

III. The Ego is the starter, hence it has the 
whole external series of Signs under its control ; 
when we touch the pendulum, the entire machin- 
ery of the clock (also the work of the Ego) 
moves and runs its course. Still we have to 
touch the pendulum. So it comes about that in 
this complete externalization of the Sign or chain 
of Signs, the Ego has gotten complete possession 
of them, has made them its own just through the 
act of separation. The poem is committed to 
memory, we say; the mind hardly needs to think 
of the meaning in order to recall the words ; the 
Ego through its own fiat dominates them, having 
linked them into this external chain. The fact 
is the outer Sign has been inwardized by mechan- 
ical Memory at first it was really external to 
the Ego, hence not controllable, but easily for- 
gettable. But now when it has been made external 
through the act of the Ego, its very externality 
is placed under the authority of the Ego, which 
thus has returned out of its self-opposition, such 
as we observed in the previous stage. 



MEMOBIZATION. 401 

Life is full of the necessity of mastering many 
series of Signs. The alphabet is such a series, 
language is also ; the special vocations of men 
depend more or less upon the mastery of Signs. 
The telegrapher has his peculiar Sign-world ; 
departments of the nautical and military profes- 
sions are devoted to signals ; secret orders have 
their systems of Signs. 

Note that when you have fully memorized any- 
thing, say a poem, so that it runs off your tongue 
without your thinking of it, the Signs are no 
longer out of your power ; they are yours easily, 
without resistance. You have subjugated what 
was external to you in the Form ; you have not 
only the signification, but the Signs themselves. 
You need not in fact read or speak them, they 
are as internal as yourself. Thus the Ego has 
gotten complete possession of the Sign, and re- 
cognizes the same to be its own, and recognizes 
itself in the Sign. 

In this third stage of the Symbol-learning Ego 
there is also a process which has its three phases; 
these may be set apart as follows: — 

1. The Ego starts the external series of sound- 
signs, and therein shows them to be under its 
own control. By an act of volition it can set 
them going; though they are external, they are 
so through the Ego, and hence have been made 
really internal, that is, have been appropriated 
by the Ego, and projected anew into their pres- 

26 



402 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ent externality. Their movement is automatic, 
still this mechanical automaton has been con- 
structed and started by the Ego. 

2. Now we observe a new separation; having 
started the series, the Ego can withdraw itself 
from the same and think of something else; nay, 
it can start a new series within itself. It sepa- 
rates itself wholly from the series, and pays no 
heed to the same consciously, but gives its atten- 
tion to a different matter, which may likewise 
require a series of Signs. Thus a new chain 
arises, which, however, demands at first the pres- 
ence of the Meaning, of which the Ego is more 
or less conscious, while the first chain with its 
row of empty Forms sinks into the unconscious, 
and coalesces immediately with the Ego. Such 
is the separation and the interaction of the two 
series, the one coming, the other going, till the 
second series quite supplants the first. 

But this second series is of necessity subjected 
to the same process as the first; it too becomes 
automatic, or may become so ; the Ego will bid 
its Forms, having been emptied of Meaning, to 
vanish into the unconscious, there to stay in 
silence waiting the order of recall. 

3. Thus the first and the second series of 
Signs after having been so completely separated 
by the Ego, are united in the same process, and 
are made one with the Ego, being internalized 
and ideated with the same. The Signs are now 



MEMORIZATION. 403 

stored away, so to speak, are ordered, possessed 
not only singly but in an order. 

The Ego has now subjected the externality of 
the Sign with its series, and made the same its 
own; it is not only master but is conscious of its 
mastery, when it has overcome the separation 
of the Form from itself. It knows that it can 
internalize and take possession of all external 
Signs, being the lord and indeed the creator of 
the Sign-world. 

In this last process the Ego, having constructed 
the machine (Mechanical Memory) and set it 
going, repeats its constructive act, and then 
becomes aware of itself as the machine-maker. 
It has learned the Sign, and can employ it, in 
fact create it if necessary. 

Looking back over the movement of the Sym- 
bol-learning Ego, we observe that it has traveled 
through its three stages and therein manifests 
the Psychosis. It has, in the first place, learned 
the Sign and connected it with the object — the 
immediate or integrative stage in which Form and 
Meaning of the Sign are taken up without sepa- 
ration. In the second stage this separation takes 
place; the Form of the Sign (or the word) is 
completely externalized by the Ego both singly 
and in a series, wherein the mechanical element 
appears and the integration of the whole chain 
becomes external — the separative, externalized 
stage. In the third place, the Ego finds that this 



404 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

externalization of the Sign and the series is 
really the mastery of both; its own self-aliena- 
tion therein it overcomes, and recognizes itself 
to be the true possessor of the Sign-world. In 
order to attain to this recognition, however, it has 
had to travel through the self-estrangement of 
the second stage, and then be restored to unity 
with itself. 

What next? Having obtained complete pos- 
session of the Sign and the order thereof, it 
must proceed to use the same — which fact brings 
us to a new phase of Memorization. 

II. The Symbol-employing Ego. 

The Ego is now to utilize its possession of the 
Symbol, of which we here take the sound-sign or 
the word ns the best instance. I have gotten 
my store of language, I must next make it utter 
my own Self; this is a fresh act of separation in 
which I project the integrated word or sign out 
of myself into the world. So I must do, in 
accord with the necessary movement of the Ego. 
But the word will be employed not only for 
utterance, but also for communication, as we 
shall see. 

The previous act of separation took place be- 
tween Form and Meaning of the word, for the 
purpose of internalizing the same ; the present 
act of separation sends forth the total word 



MEMOBIZATION. 405 

from its internal state, makes it spoken and 
heard. It is true that the Ego both spoke and 
heard in the previous stage, but it did not then 
attain the end of speech, which must be self- 
expressive, indeed creative. The learning Ego 
was more or less imitative, taking its cue from 
the outside, from the teacher who gave the copy. 
But now the Ego must be its own teacher and 
learner too; it must utter its own Self, from 
within, though it has to employ the signs 
previously learnt. 

When I speak the word representing some 
object, I negate the image with which I start ; I 
take away its visible limit and throw it into 
movement, into Time, which is the external an- 
nulment yet preservation of the limit. For the 
sound of my voice has not extended shape, but 
is the negation thereof; the spatially limited 
image is canceled when I fling it into speech. 
On the contrary when I hear the word, I replace 
this spatial limit and restore the image; I undo 
what speech has done, I negate the negation and 
behold the object represented. Thus speech 
produces an interaction between the minds of 
the speaker and hearer, which brings about their 
mutual coalescence and communication. 

This is now the important fact which is to be 
unfolded in the Symbol-employing Ego, which 
shows three stages : first it speaks the word im- 
mediately ; secondly it hears the word which 



406 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

implies the separate act from that of the speaking 
Ego ; the two, speaking and hearing, are one and 
the act of one Ego, which is the completed act of 
the Symbol-employing Ego. 

I. The Ego speaks the word, let it be the word 
tree. The Ego therein reproduces the object or 
image in sound, this vibrates on the air, a new, 
outer element, in which there is no geometrical 
figure, and no picture of one. The act is a nega- 
tion of the spatial form of the object, external and 
internal, and a making it over into a moving sound 
which can have no such fixed limit as the image 
has. Such is the spoken word : an annulment of 
the inner figure and the projection of it into the 
sound-world. Let us follow this process in a 
few details. 

1. The Ego has the percept or the image, 
which is its starting-point at present; this is 
what it will utter, or set forth in the sound of 
the voice. 

2. The Ego next recollects the name or the 
sound-sign which it has already appropriated and 
stored away in the Symbol-learning stage. This 
requires an act of Memory which is separative, 
now the Ego has two elements : the image and 
the name, the object and its sound-sign, distinct 
yet held together. 

3. The Ego makes a synthesis of the two, 
and the name is spoken, externalized ; the sound 
of the voice laden with the image, which is its 



MEMOBIZATION. 407 

inner meaning, vibrates on the air to the limit of 
the vocal periphery. Within this vocal periphery 
is a second Ego, let us say ; the vibrations strike 
the ear and become a new stimulus, that of 
hearing. 

II. The Ego hears the word spoken, let it be 
the word tree. Twofold is now the situation, 
embracing the speaker and the hearer who is sup- 
posed to understand the meaning of the word. 
The hearing Ego takes up the sound-sign, and 
from it reconstitutes the image which represents 
the object; I, hearing the word tree in known 
sound, at once reproduce the image of that 
object. What the speaker did, the hearer 
undoes; the one transmuted the image into 
sound, the other transmutes the sound back into 
image. Let us mark the steps of the latter 
process. 

1. The Ego takes up the sound-sign through 
the act of hearing; this is the starting-point in 
the present case, it hears the spoken word. 

2. The Ego next recollects the image or the 
meaning which it has coupled with this sound- 
sign, having appropriated and stored away the 
same in the Symbol-learning stage. This de- 
mands memory, which is pre-supposed in the 
present act. Again the Ego finds itself with 
two elements : the heard name and the recol- 
lected image or meaning, the two distinct yet 
held together. 



408 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

3. The Ego brings the two into coalescence ; 
the heard sound, which is the word, is internal- 
ized, and thereby is transmuted into the image, 
which is the inner meaning of the word. 
Through the hearing Ego the sound passes into 
sense. 

The hearing Ego has thus come back to the 
image, the point at which the speaking Ego 
started. Both have gone through their separate 
processes, yet it is manifest that both constitute 
fundamentally one process. The hearing Ego 
having the internal image must necessarily pro- 
ceed to externalize it in sound, which is the 
spoken word. For the Ego by its very nature is 
this self-externalization ; only thus can it realize 
itself in speech. But this is a new phase of the 
Ego and a new stage of the present movement. 

III. The Ego having heard the spoken word, 
speaks in response. Thus the Ego shows itself 
complete; it responds, which means that it 
speaks, hears, and returns to speech. All in one 
it negates the image and throws it into sound by 
speaking, and then it negates this negation and 
restores the image through hearing. The Ego 
does both : it takes its own image and flings the 
same into the stream of Time, annulling the 
spatial limits thereof; then it takes up this same 
image annulled, restoring the spatial limits. 
Thus it is each side and both together — the 
complete process of itself as Symbol -employing. 



MEMORIZATION. 409 

But this Ego also has its movement, which 
unfolds into the realm of communication. 

1. The responding Ego is at first single, a 
process within itself, simply subjective. But 
this internal completeness soon shows itself in- 
complete, limited, indeed dependent. In order 
to be able to respond, it must have another Ego 
absolutely distinct, yet just as complete as it is, 
since this second Ego also must respond. 

2. Thus separation, duplicity again enters; 
the previous duplicity lay between the speaking 
and hearing Ego, which, however, is one com- 
plete process of the Ego. But this completed 
Ego, beiug internal must also know itself as ex- 
ternal, must indeed externalize itself as complete, 
which means another Ego. Thus we have two 
different Symbol-employing Egos, those which 
can both hear and speak the word, responding 
to each other. 

3. These two independent individuals, each 
complete in himself, are therein just alike, both 
have the same fundamental process of the Ego. 
Each, hearing and speaking, responds and cor- 
responds to the other ; they are in a process with 
each other, they receive and they impart; the 
speaking half (let us call it for the nonce) joins 
with the hearing half and constitutes a new 
totality. Thus the two Egos through the Sign 
form a medium which is itself a process involving 
both, in which medium both participate, unite, 



410 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

commune. We may keep up the simile and say 
that one total Ego gives one half of itself, and 
the other total Ego gives the other half of itself, 
and the two form the third (which is the com- 
pleted Word) uniting both, being a process which 
interlinks both in its movement. 

Thus the different Egos have not only unity, 
but community, are not only joined together, but 
are mediated by a common element ; still further, 
this community of Egos is not a fixed state, but 
a living process, indeed just their own process. 
Thus the community becomes communication, 
which is the outcome and completion of the 
Symbol-employing Ego. 

III. Communication. 

The individual Ego communicates with the in- 
dividual Ego by means of the Symbol, which is 
or contains in itself the process of the Ego. The 
most complete form of this process, as has been 
already set forth, is found in the Sign which is 
the word. To the latter, accordingly, we pay 
special attention in the present exposition. 

The community must have something in com- 
mon, must communicate it, and must have a 
means of communication. Who makes this 
means? The community itself, the individual 
Ego cannot do it, though he can commune with 
himself. The language of a people is not made 



MEMOBIZATION. 411 

by one man, but by the people themselves, by 
many Egos co-operating in a social order. We 
have already seen that the living process of the 
word requires at least two Egos, speaking and 
hearing, which process is the mean or mediating 
principle between them. 

A society, then, has to make a language, which 
is in itself a kind of society or image of the 
social order that produces it. Language also 
has its organization, which is the right grammar 
of it, and which is patterned after the process of 
the Ego. Still each individual of the society has 
to be creative of speech, has to make the word 
over every time he uses it, though he has received 
it ready-made. The word, taken by itself, is but 
the external, crystallized process of the Ego, 
which has to make it internal and vital, before it 
can communicate. 

We shall now observe the movement of the 
community making a means of communication 
through Signs, vocal Signs specially, and order- 
ing them into a system of speech. First we shall 
regard the community as Sign-possessing, receiv- 
ing and using the same ; secondly the community 
as Sign-creating which is the making of the Sign- 
world; thirdly, Intercommunication, in which 
this Sign-world or community of Signs mediates 
and unites the community of individual Egos. 

We have thus come to the pre-supposition of 
the Sign-learning and Sign-employing Ego, 



412 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

namely, the community, which is in possession 
of the Sign at the start, yet has always to be in 
the process of re-possessing- the same, in order 
to keep it alive and lasting. Hence the com- 
munity has to keep doing what the individual 
Ego has done — learn, employ and finally create 
the Sign. Yet this is different from the process 
of the single Ego, which rises and passes away 
in the community while the latter endures. In 
like manner the process of speech endures, is 
continuous in the community; yet it has its 
process therein, with its three stages, as we now 
are to see. 

I. We find the community at the start in 
possession of the great means of communica- 
tion, the language-sign — a fact which we have 
already pre-supposed in the preceding exposi- 
tion. The child has to learn these Signs, the ma- 
ture man employs them in all his intercourse with 
his fellow-man. But that which has been hitherto 
assumed, must now be brought forth to light and 
made explicit. The individual Ego in the fore- 
going movement has unfolded into the community 
which receives, preserves and makes the Sign. 

The possession of the Sign by the community, 
the active, not the merely passive possession 
thereof, is the immediate fact before us. We 
may sketch the activity involved in such posses- 
sion. 

1. Every community receives the Sign (or 



MEMORIZATION, 413 

Word) and has to take the same up into itself. 
It inherits language, preserves it, and then trans- 
mits it, all of which requires an active and 
organized endeavor. 

2. Every community not only takes up, but 
also employs, externalizes the Sign, which has 
been transmitted to it and appropriated by it, 
using the same in its own way and for its own 
behoof according to the needs of communication. 

3. Every community not only uses the Sign as 
handed down, but transforms the Sign more or 
less, and begins to assert itself, in the matter of 
language, as free, as limit-transcending. It em- 
ploys the old Form ( or Word ) to express the new 
Meaning, yet it will transmute the old Form, 
when this gets to be inadequate. Through this 
partial transmutation of the Sign we make the 
transition to its creation, which is the next 
stage. 

II. The community creates the Sign, not only 
renewing it but making a new one. This does 
not mean that the community at a single fiat or in 
a given period produces a totally new language. 
It is, however, always creating Sign3, cannot 
help doing so; it is at the same time keeping and 
using what has been transmitted to it from the 
ancestors in the way of Signs. 

The community, therefore, transforms itself 
into Signs, throws itself out of itself and looks at 
itself, indeed reads itself transformed into Signs. 



414 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

All its happenings, opinions, thoughts, even its 
scandal it mirrors to itself by Signs. What else 
is the newspaper? The community's daily life 
(perchance the world's) is first observed, then is 
put into Signs (say printed Signs) in which it 
holds itself up before itself. 

The Sign-creating community, in order to 
mirror itself adequately, will transform itself into 
a system, or we may say, a community of Signs, 
into which it organizes itself in the present 
sphere, creating three kinds of signs — the Sign 
of the Image, the Sign of the Symbol and the 
Sign of the Sign. 

1. We have already seen how the world of 
externality, visible nature, is taken up by the 
Ego and becomes the Image. Still further, this 
Image is projected in sound and thereby becomes 
a spoken word, a Sign through which the Image 
is communicated from Ego to Ego. Thus the 
sense-world, passing through the Image, gets its 
Sign. 

2. The community begins to express its inner 
life by creating the Sign of the Symbol. As 
already set forth (p. 281, etc.) the Symbol, 
specially the explicit Symbol, is the external Im- 
age with an internal Meaning given by the Ego. 
The Image of wrestling is applied, first to body, 
and then to mind; in the latter case it is specially 
symbolic, and utters what is internal. The Sym- 
bol with its outer Form and inner Meaning is 



ME M OBI Z A TION. 415 

transformed into the Sign, which is here the 
Word, whereby the soul-life of man is communi- 
cated from soul to soul, and the inner world gets 
expression. 

3. We have already seen the Symbol passing 
over into the Sign (p. 343); in like manner we 
are now to behold the Sign of the Symbol mov- 
ing into the Sign of the Sign. The Ego (of the 
community) makes the Sign and puts therein its 
own Meaning; but this is not all; the Ego makes 
a Sign which expresses just this activity of itself 
in making the Sign. 

Language communicates not only the outer 
and inner worlds from mind to mind, but also 
shows itself doing the same. The Ego speaks 
not only the word but speaks the word ivord, 
the Sign of the Sign; thus the Sign is made to 
designate itself, and the word not only expresses 
something different from itself (as tree or 
thought) but also can turn back and express 
itself in the process of expressson. Herein we 
behold the movement of the Ego itself in its 
self-separation and self-return, the very image of 
the self-conscious act. 

Every time the Ego uses the word ivord, it 
indicates not only the Sign, but also indicates 
itself (unconsciously at first) as the maker of 
the Sign. The word has now itself as its own 
content, or the Form of the word i3 its Meaning. 
The word turns back upon itself , and takes itself 



416 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

up into itself, shows its own process through- 
out, and thus becomes the Sign of the Sign. 

Here we come to the organization of the 
word — grammar with its manifold adjuncts. In 
the present connection, however, we can only 
note that the community has brought forth a 
grand system or community of Signs to express 
its outer and inner worlds, which system finally 
expresses itself. Thus the word has the word 
as content, and the Form of speech speaks itself 
as its own Meaning. 

The community has now inherited, preserved, 
and created an organized Sign-world, or a com- 
munity of Signs. What next? 

III. Intercommunication — the community of 
Egos communicates through a community of 
Signs, which mediates each Ego with each and 
with the community. Note the sides and the 
reconciling mean ; the community of separate or 
particular Egos on the one hand, the community 
as an organized whole on the other, the com- 
munity of Signs (an organized totality of 
speech) as the mediating or intercommunicating 
principle. Here again we shall have the pro- 
cess, that of Intercommunication, which will 
manifest itself in the movement of the word. 

1. The first act of the communicator is that 
he must make his percept or image common, or 
universal. This is done by the Ego annulling 
the spatial limit of the object (imaged or con- 



MEMOBIZA TION. 417 

ceived) by means of speech. The process of the 
speaking Ego has been already given (p. 406); at 
present we are to note the spoken word, which, 
being flung into a moving externality, whose 
essence is Time, has its limit thereby annulled, 
so that it is no longer this fixed, limited, particular 
thing, this tree here and now, but all trees every- 
where and at all times. Just through speaking the 
word tree, its particularity as object or image is 
canceled, it is made common, the property of 
the community and the basis of intercommuni- 
cation. The hearing Ego takes up the spoken 
word and restores the image. Thus the mediat- 
ing principle is the word, or the making universal 
what is particular, through speech. 

2. But this word, having been thrown into 
externality by speech, is itself limited, particu- 
lar, as against other words, and it has this mean- 
ing as against other meanings. It is, moreover, 
the product of this community as against other 
communities, each of which has or may have 
its own sound-sign. Tree, Baum, arbre are the 
different sound-signs which an English, German, 
or French community respectively would give to 
the same object or image. Thus language is 
particularized into many languages. The com- 
munity has its common Sign, but this is limited 
by the limit of the community. The Ego, how- 
ever, must transcend this limit also; thereby it 
enters a foreign Sign-world, and appropriates the 

27 



418 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

same, in the act of learning another tongue than 
its own. 

3. That is, there is still a community of Mean- 
ing in all these separated, particular Forms, 
which Meaning the Ego can reach and identify, 
because it is its own, indeed itself. Thus the 
Ego asserts itself as universal, transcending the 
limits of its own particular community, and 
attaining to that which is common to all com- 
munities. 

What is it that is common to all communities? 
We have seen that the spoken word, after being 
made common, or universal, drops back into the 
particularity of the community, taking on its 
limits. But there is still a common principle in 
all these different words; they are identical in 
being particular Forms to express the same 
Meaning. But what is this common or universal 
Meaning which particularizes itself, in order to 
utter itself as common or universal? It is the 
creative process of the Ego which we have already 
seen passing into separation and difference, and 
then returning to unity with itself. The English- 
man and the Chinaman go through the same 
process in thinking tree though their words be so 
different for tree. 

The process of the Ego is not only universal 
but is the Universal as such, which separates 
itself into particularity, then cancels this partic- 
ularity and thereby returns and restores itself as 



MEMOBIZATION. 419 

Universal. The concrete Universal is just this 
process, which is that of the Ego, to which the 
word leads but which it can never fully give, 
since the word is the limited and the particular 
in itself. Still if it cannot literally express the 
process, it can always be made to suggest the 
same, whereby it becomes living and reflects the 
Psychosis. The word therefore calls into activ- 
ity something higher than itself, namely its own 
creator, the universal genetic act — Thought. 

It is manifest that we have now reached a new 
field, beyond Memorization, beyond Representa- 
tion. We have transcended the Image in its last 
outcome, which is the Sign or the Word, and 
the Ego begins a new career. The Word is not 
Thought but the Sign of Thought. Its function 
is to set the process of the Ego going ; it is the 
external form of that process, but is not in itself 
the process, and never can be. Representation 
(the second grand sphere of the Intellect) has 
shown the movement of the Image from being a 
simple copy of the external object, to being the 
Sign of the Sign or the externalized Image of 
the process of the Ego itself. 

But when the Ego moves through its own pro- 
cess to grasp the object and not through the 
word, it is thinking; that which it sees in the 
object must be finally itself, its own process. 
The word provokes this activity, forces thinking 
to a degree; to be sure, there must be an ade- 



420 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

quate response on the part of the Ego addressed. 
The word also expresses Thought, is the trans- 
parent outward form thereof; still, in order to 
be comprehended, the Thought must be re-created 
after the word. 

Accordingly, when the Ego grasps itself as 
the process of the thing, it is thinking (etymo- 
logically thinking is probably thinging, creating 
the thing over in the mind ; for example, when 
you thing yonder window or tree, you must re- 
create it as object through your Ego). Let us 
trace this transition from the Sign ( or Word) to 
the Thing. We have seen that the Ego created 
a Sign-world (language), the pure external form 
of its own process. Now this Sign-world is real, 
is Thing, whose very function is to bring the 
process of the Ego home to itself. The Ego, 
therefore, has created in the present case the 
Thing (or object) which is the real image of it- 
self in its own process, and which, accordingly, 
throws back to the Ego its creative act. 

So the Ego, in creating the Sign, which is its 
own pure movement externalized in an object, 
finds itself not only to be Sign-maker, but also 
Thing-maker — the Sign being itself a Thing 
made by the Ego just for the purpose of reflecting 
itself back to itself. The Ego now sees itself as 
Thing in the Word, it knows itself as the genetic 
act thereof. 

The realm of Thought has now dawned and 



MEMOBIZATION. 421 

over it we may cast a momentary glance. The 
Sign or the Word represents all Things ; we have 
seen the Ego transforming the outer sense-world 
and the inner mind-world into Signs, especially 
those of language. The whole sweep of the 
Macrocosm and the Microcosm has had to be 
made over into Signs for the purpose of Inter- 
communication. But the Ego has found itself 
to be not only the maker of the Sign, but also of 
the Thing in the Sign or ©f the object signified. 
With this knowledge of itself gained through the 
Sign or the Word, it has next to travel through 
the whole realm of Thkigs and recognize itself as 
the creator thereof. It does not create them at 
first hand but creates them over after the original 
creative fiat of the primal Ego. 

This new mastery of the world, both inner and 
outer, will call forth a new process of the Ego, 
which will reveal the movement of Thought. 
For Thought also will have to complete itself 
through the process of the Ego, before it fully 
recognizes itself as the creative principle of the 
Universe. 

A few observations may be appended to the 
preceding ordered development of Memorization, 
giving in a brief, discursive fashion, some of the 
points therein set forth. 

1. The student is to grasp the word as a pro- 
cess, which is indeed its very life. This process 



422 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

is the mean between the Egos speaking and hear- 
ing, the mean of communication, in which both 
share, having the same in common. When I 
speak the word window, I annul the Image by 
throwing it out of me into time; the other Ego 
hears it and restores the Image, returns to what 
I started with. This is the real life of the word, 

2. The Ego in speaking negates the limit of 
the Image, so that the word has not the limit of 
the Image, and hence is universal, all-common, 
applicable to all Images of that kind. The word 
tree applies to all trees, since its being limited to 
this particular tree is canceled by the very fact 
of the uttering of the word. 

3. Because the word is universal, with limit 
removed, it can be taken up by the hearing Ego, 
which otherwise could not break through the 
limit of the Image directly. I must take away 
the fence around my own Image, ere the 
other Ego can enter, which it does with my 
consent, or through my act. On the other hand 
I cannot force my Image with its limit upon the 
other Ego, for the latter must reproduce my 
Image through its own act, before possessing the 
same. 

4. In both these cases the Ego shows itself as 
free, self-determined even in the matter of 
speaking and hearing the word, or of imparting 
and receiving the Image. Furthermore both 
Egos must be creative in this process, in the 



MEMOBIZATIOX. 423 

one case creating the word, in the other creating 
or reproducing the Image. Limit-transcending 
also both Egos show themselves; the one breaks 
down the limit of the Image and makes its 
meaning universal in the word; the other is not 
confined to this act, but reverses it and restores 
the Image. 

5. The play of negation should also be con- 
sidered in the present activity. The limit is 
always negative, it negates at least the indefinite 
extension of the object. But we have seen the 
Ego negating the limit of the Image, that is, 
negating the negative. Still further, the second 
Ego restores the limit of the Image, that is, 
negates the first negative by a second, and 
therein completes the cycle of the process of 
the word. Here again we come upon that 
which has been called " the negativity of the 
Ego," suggesting its innermost movement and 
essence, to which allusion has been already made 
(p. 220). 

6. The Ego, in creating the Sign, creates a new 
realm of objects, which culminates in the word ; 
this again culminates in being the externalized 
process of the Ego, and thus reveals the latter to 
itself as the creator of an objective world. The 
Ego now grasps itself as the creative principle of 
all objectivity ; therein it returns to the sense- 
world, not now to perceive it simply and to 
reproduce it as extended (Sense-perception), 



424 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

but to reach back of it and to see its creation. 
This is Thought. In Sense-perception, there- 
fore, the Ego merely accepted the world as 
given and tried to sense it; but in Thought the 
Ego must see the world, in the act of creation, 
must repeat, if you choose to say so, the genetic 
movement of the Divine Ego. Still, Thought 
itself has to go through a process of self-unfold- 
ing in order to attain this highest view of things. 
7. What the function of the Image (Represen- 
tation) is, becomes now manifest. It is a mean 
and mediatorial; it mediates the mere sensing of 
the outer object in Sense-perception with the 
creative process thereof in Thought, moving 
more and more toward its goal through Copy, 
Symbol, Sign, till the Word reveals Thought to 
the Ego. Verily the Logos still reveals to the 
world its Creator. 



CHAPTER THIRD. — THOUGHT. 

The third stage of the movement of Intellect 
toward the complete comprehension of itself is 
what we shall here call Thought. In the two prev- 
ious stages there was noted a continuous deepen- 
ing of the mind into its own essence, which it has 
now attained. From time immemorial Thinking 
has been recognized as the supreme act of in- 
telligence. What, then, is Thought? A brief 
preliminary definition may here be thrown out: 
Thought is the process of the Ego recognizing 
itself to be Object. All Thought rests upon the 
fact that it is what the Object is, and the Object 
is what it is. 

Already such a definition comes before the 
reader as difficult to grasp ; there is something 
intangible about it, the mind glides off without 
being able to get a hold. But just therein lies 

(425) 



426 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the nature of Thought ; it is not a thing of sense, 
nor is it an image; it has no limits on the out- 
side, none indeed except what it posits from the 
inside. 

In Sense-perception, I- see the window as pres- 
ent to my vision; in Representation, I image 
the window, though it be absent ; in Thought, I 
think the window, be it present or absent. The 
latter is not a view of it without, not a picture 
of it within ; the Thought of it is just that which 
constitutes it a window. Suppose that I think 
the window as a transparent piece of matter, 
whose purpose is to let light into an inclosed 
space, yet to exclude cold and rain; thus I pen- 
etrate the Thought of the man who made it, I 
recognize his purpose, his Ego ; him, the maker, 
I penetrate also in thinking his Thought. The 
mere sight of the window or the image of it, are 
external in comparison; the essence of it lies in 
its Thought. 

When I grasp the idea and purpose of the 
maker of the window, my Thought knows his 
Thought, or Ego recognizes Ego. Thus the Ego 
has reached itself in its pure form, and appre- 
hends itself as Object. Looking back we see 
that the whole movement of the Intellect has 
been to recognize itself in the objective world. 
In Sense-perception the Object as percept was 
made internal from the outside and then pro- 
jected back into externality ; in Representation 



THOUGHT. 427 

the Object as internal image underwent various 
transformations till at last it became the word, 
the externalized form of the Ego itself ; in 
Thought the Object is the process of the Ego, 
whereby the Ego has become universal, that is, 
self-limited, its only bound being itself. In try- 
ing to think, therefore, the Ego of the Subject 
is always seeking to find the Ego of the Object; 
the process of the one identifies the process of 
the other as its own. 

It may be said that, in thinking the window, 
or the house, etc., we are dealing with a class of 
objects which we know that man has made, and 
into which he has put his Ego. How is it, then, 
with the things which man has not made, the 
things of nature, for instance? The same holds 
true. If I think the tree, it is not a percept or 
an image, not any external or internal copy; I 
must define the tree, I must think its Thought, 
that is, the Thought which created it and made 
it distinctively a tree. In other words, my 
definition must be genetic, else it will not give 
the true Thought of the thing. Nature is the 
creative manifestation of the Ego, of the Divine 
Ego ; the right Thought of Nature is the recog- 
nition of the Divine Ego. The architect of the 
house and the architect of the world are both 
Egos, which the thinking Ego must identify with 
itself in order to know them. 

Throughout Imagination we noted the sep- 



428 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

aration of the Object into Form and Meaning; 
the image as symbol divides itself in this manner. 
But Thought overcomes the division ; the sides 
are one, the subject Ego (as Form ), is the object 
Ego (as Meaning or Content). Still the separa- 
tion is also present though overcome ; the unity 
of Thought is just the transcending of the divis- 
ion and of the finitude of the image. 

Thought also makes signs for itself, but these 
signs are freed from the limits of the signs 
already considered, which were the products of 
the Imagination. The chief sign is the word ; the 
word employed by Thought to express itself 
must have the characteristic impress of Thought. 
The image must be transcended, and, if possi- 
ble, abolished. Take, for example, the word 
Thought: the sensuous or imaginative stage of it 
has quite vanished, though it be Saxon and not 
Latin. Thought takes no flag to think national- 
ity with, but thinks the thing itself, which is 
just the Thought of it as Object. Thus Thought 
seizes the sign of itself directly and uses the 
same for self-expression. With the sign of 
Thought, therefore, I have to think, and not 
with an image, nor with an illustration, nor with 
any other impure form not yet free of its physical 
substrate. 

And just here a warning in regard to illustra- 
tion in psychology may be properly given. It 
is absolutely necessary for beginners, and is 



THOUGHT. 429 

often helpful to the practiced student ; still it has 
its danger. We should always remember that the 
illustration of the Thought is never the Thought 
itself. People often keep the former and lose 
the latter; the scaffolding is necessary in build- 
ing the house, but should not take the place of 
the house. In the end we must think the 
Thought purely, and not be held fast in an 
illustration of the Thought, which always has 
something in it different from the Thought. 

The great difficulty with the expression of 
Thought is that it is liable to drop back into the 
image, and thus become ambiguous. If I say, / 
have iveighed the matter, no one can tell whether 
I mean a mental or a physical act ; but if I say / 
have pondered the matter, there is no ambiguity 
in English, though in Latin the word ponder 
might be double in meaning. Hence in our 
tongue a purely reflective or philosophical set of 
words has arisen. In fact, just this movement 
of human language is the movement of the Ego. 
There is the first immediate, unreflective stage, 
in which the sensuous element alone is present 
(weigh); the second is the double, metaphorical 
stage, as in the two meanings of weigh; the third 
is the purely reflective stage (ponder). 

Still, Thought is not going to get rid wholly of 
doubleness, and of ambiguity ; that were indeed 
to get rid of all difference. The Ego is twofold 
by its very nature, is twofold in its oneness, as 



430 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

we have often seen. Hence the word Thought 
is used and has to be used in two senses, which, 
however, the mind of the reader must always 
identify. On the one hand, the world is Thought 
(objective); on the other hand man is Thought 
(subjective); Thinking is the act of uniting and 
identifying the two, of recognizing Mind and 
Being as one in their absolute difference. Indeed 
this Thinking is also Thought, and is so named. 

Philosophical speech cannot, therefore, wholly 
get rid of ambiguity, or the double-meaning ; on 
the contrary it must, in the proper place, assert 
the same, and show it as the necessary outcome 
of the movement of the Ego. Still the mind is 
one and must at last unify the most obstinate 
dualism. 

Just this is the work of the Psychosis. Though 
speech drop helpless into difference and ambig- 
uity, the reader must rise above it in the pure 
activity of his spirit; he must himself be 
Thought thinking Thought, and thus make him- 
self the nexus of all dualism. Such is the Psy- 
chosis, always the last word of Psychology, the 
solvent of all separation and restorer of unity. 

The relation of Thought to the word can be 
still further set forth. Thought thinks purely, 
it has no need of an external sign, not even of 
the spoken word. Speaking is the external 
manifestation of the sign ; Thinking thinks itself 
and is its own sign. The word when thought, 



THOUGHT. 431 

is different from the word when spoken ; speech 
has breath, sound, externality, difference, sepa- 
ration from Thought; but Thought as such is 
purely internal, and its final form is the 
Psychosis. To be sure we may think in words 
or names derived from the outside ; but the 
destiny of the word is to lose its externality and 
become Thought. 

Still, on the other hand, Thought is com- 
pletely objective, it is indeed just the true 
Object as distinguished from appearance. 
While the Ego, in moving from Sense-perception 
toward Thought, has become more and more 
internal, or subjectified, it has at the same time 
become more and more objectified and real. 
To take a well-known example, what is this real 
object called house? Not the brick, not the 
mortar, not the wood, the glass, the iron ; all 
these are commanded by a higher power to come 
together and make a house. What is this 
power? Evidently Thought, in this case the 
Thought of the architect; and if this Thought 
could be in any manner extracted from the 
house, the latter would tumble to ruin. 

Such is the emphatic point in Thinking ; it 
knows itself to be the real essence and nature of 
the Object. When I think Space, I must grasp 
it as an object and also as phase of my Ego ; I 
must identify it with myself. Thus Thought is 
subject-object, not as the Ego simply (see Intro- 



432 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

duction, p. 30) but as the Ego which has posited 
the non-Ego or the objective world, and thus it 
now knows as itself objectified. Accordingly we 
observe that all knowing is ultimately self- 
knowing ; the subject Ego identifies the object 
Ego as itself, and so reaches the knowledge 
which is given by Thought. 

All men think, but not all men know them- 
selves as thinking. They may see through the 
reality before them, but do not see through 
themselves seeing through that reality. They 
are Thought, but not Thought thinking Thought. 
In psychology Thought has to think Thought, 
and behold itself going through its own process. 
It is thus truly self-knowing ; it not only knows 
itself, but knows Self to be Object, and so 
translates Object into Self — the act of Thinking. 
On the other hand, the Ego, to complete its pro- 
cess has to translate Self into Object — the act" 
of Willing or Volition. 

If we now look back and observe the previous 
stages of Intellect, we shall find that all along 
we have been thinking, though perhaps not fully 
aware of what Thought is. In Sense-perception 
the image was affirmed to be present in the mind 
but not consciously separated from the percept ; 
that is just the thinking of Sense-perception. 
In Eepresentation, the Ego separates the image 
from the percept (or internalized object of 
sense), and beholds it as distinct; just that is the 



THOUGHT. 433 

thinking of Representation. But in this third 
stage of Intellect, Thought is to seize that lurk- 
ing Thought, namely itself, and to make it 
explicit; it is not only to know but to know 
itself as knowing. 

Thus the Ego returns to itself in the process 
of Intellect, after being alienated in Sense-per- 
ception, which took the Object as external and 
alien to the Ego. In Representation the Object 
has become internal, but is the copy of the ex- 
ternal Object, or is laden with the form of 
externality, till the Ego frees itself in Thought, 
when it has itself as its own Object. Then we 
can say that the Ego has attained freedom, hav- 
ing liberated itself from its foreign element. 

At this point we begin to catch something of 
the movement and significance of our science. 
Psychology is an evolution of the Ego ever sep- 
arating from itself yet ever returning into itself 
in larger and larger cycles till it embraces the 
Universe. Hence, a corresponding involution 
of the Ego, also a deepening of it takes place, 
which is the process of its self-completion. A 
psychology is not, therefore, a collection of facts 
simply, in some possible external classification ; 
the movement of the psychical fact is the main 
thing, the movement into and out of itself into 
another psychical fact, whereby their unity is 
eternally active, not fixed and dead. 

In accord with the preceding view we may 

28 



434 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

state that Thinking is the rise out of the partic- 
ular into the universal. It is the One in all par- 
ticulars, binding them together not by an external 
bond or class, but by the movement of Thought 
itself, which is just their unity. All the partic- 
ulars of a window are held in solution in the 
Thought of the window; in fact this Thought is 
what created them. Thought is thus the generic 
or universal, which not only connects the par- 
ticulars, but is their creative principle. Hence 
the true unity of a series of particulars is not a 
crystallized mass or class, but a living process of 
Thinking. 

The particular, therefore, being thought, van- 
ishes into the universal, which fact we can look 
at in three stages. (1) When I think the win- 
dow, it is what all windows are, universal, all- 
common (allgemein). (2) It is creative, is 
what makes all windows, and without it no win- 
dows could be made.. (3) The Ego recognizes 
that creative principle to be itself — identifies it, 
and thus thinks it, wherein it knows itself as 
Thought thinking Thought. 

The statement may be once more repeated : 
all Thought is what the Object is, and the Object 
is what it is. In this introduction to the third 
stage of Intellect, the reader can easily count 
half a dozen repetitions of the same idea with a 
few different turns of variations ; still it is not 
easy for the mind to hold. It cannot be imaged, 



THOUGHT. 435 

it cannot be remembered, except as a hollow 
formula of words; it must be thought that 
Thought is objective. The mind must grow 
into the doctrine, the idea cannot be stormed. 
The verbal statement of the loftiest truth is hol- 
low and worthless unless filled at once with the 
activity of the spirit, which is just that truth, 
whatever it be. As already said, the Psychosis 
must supplement the division, the formula, the 
word. 

Thought we have called the third stage of the 
Ego in the unfolding of the Intellect. This 
stage is that of unity and of identification in 
general ; it makes one the Mind and the Object 
as in Sense-perception, yet it retains ideally their 
difference, as in Representation; thus it pre- 
serves the fundamental psychological fact in each 
of the two preceding stages, and unifies them in 
a complete form of the Ego. The process of 
Thought is to develop the identity between Ego 
and Object, or between itself (Thought) and the 
Thing. This identity between Subject and the 
Universe it is the movement of Thought to make 
explicit out of its immediate, implicit condition. 

The movement of Thought grasping itself as 
the process of the objective world will pass 
through three stages corresponding to those of 
the Ego. 

I. The Understanding — -in which Thought 
shows itself as identifying the Object with itself 



436 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

immediately, that is, more or less externally, 
without penetrating to the real division of the 
Object or of itself. 

The Understanding does not see the movement 
of the Ego in the Object, .but unconsciously takes 
the same for granted and proceeds to identify the 
Object with itself, always coming to it from the 
outside. 

II. Ratiocination — in which Thought shows 
itself as the differentiating principle of the Ob- 
ject; it divides within itself and unfolds through 
division into the external forms of itself into 
which it puts the Object. Ratiocination is For- 
mulation — Thought creating its own Forms, and 
outering (uttering) itself in its own pure exter- 
nality. When Thought ratiocinates, it puts the 
Object into the form which it creates out of 
itself. 

Ratiocination does not externally divide the 
Object (as does the Understanding), but posits 
its divisive form within the Object, yet as the 
external form of itself. Still the supreme form 
of externality, the summum genus, it cannot 
posit, rather the latter posits it, and therein sub- 
ordinates it to a higher. 

III. Reason — in which Thought grasps 
Thought as the process of the Universe as Object ; 
it generates the summum genus, is the return to 
itself in its own pure process out of the Forms 
of Ratiocination. Thought now recognizes the 



THOUGHT. 437 

Universe as itself and itself as the Universe. 
Finally it is the Psychosis of the Psychosis. 

Naturally the meaning of this sweep through 
the world of Thought (in three huge strides) will 
not be fully understood by the student till he has 
studied the details of the forthcoming exposi- 
tion. Still it gives an outlook, doubtless indis- 
tinct enough; it plainly bears, however, in its 
movement the suggestion of the Psychosis, which 
is now to become explicit and has to give an 
account of itself. But only at the end of this 
whole psychological movement can such a prom- 
ise be fulfilled. 

So we shall seek to realize Thought, the great 
goal not only of Psychology, but of culture, of 
life itself. The man who truly thinks the object, 
who penetrates it with Thought and sees it as a 
process of Thought, is the mighty man of this 
world, mighty in wisdom. For he communes 
directly with the soul of all objectivity, and if 
he can also make himself its mouth-piece, he is 
the seer, the poet, the philosopher. But now 
let us begin to thread this last } 7 et subtlest laby- 
rinth of the Ego — a toilsome, patience-trying 
journey, but not without hope. 



SECTION FIBST.— THE UNDEB STANDING. 

To understand a thing is usually held to be 
the first step in all Thinking. What does it 
mean in a general way? The mind holds up 
before itself the thing either in Perception or 
Representation, and identifies some phase thereof 
with its own previous knowledge. You under- 
stand what lam telling you now, when you make 
it your own, make it the same (identify it) with 
yourself. The difference between you and me in 
this matter is pre-supposed ; just this difference 
you must cancel by an act of the Understand- 
ing. 

Such is the realm of the Understanding in 
general, and its fundamental predicate or cate- 
gory is Identity. All the words employed in this 
activity of the mind— sameness, equality, likeness, 
comparison, resemblance, unity — are essentially 
(438) 



THE UNDEBSTANDING. 439 

terms of the Understanding, though they may, 
of course, be carried forward into other mental 
activities. Still the Ego has Difference also in its 
very constitution, hence this opposite term will 
always be lurking about somewhere in the opera- 
tions of the Understanding, in spite of, nay on 
account of its stress upon Identity. Thus a 
corresponding set of opposite terms has to be 
introduced, resting upon Difference, which terms 
must also be regarded as those of the Under- 
standing. 

Thinking now grasps the Thought of the 
Thing in an immediate act, without the media- 
tion of reasoning. Understanding is immediate 
Identity, that is, not mediated through Katiocin- 
ation, or the Difference. It finds the likeness in 
things and unites them by such likeness into 
classes. It goes deeper and finds the similarity 
in the organs of living things (plants and 
animals) and unites them into species, families, 
orders organically. It seizes the essential as dis- 
tinct from the unessential, and thus can identify 
the essence of things apart from appearance. 
Law, Force, Cause, are some of its terms, espe- 
cially in Natural Science ; it reaches out beyond 
the phenomena, the realm of the diverse and the 
manifold, into the realm of the One (or Identity) 
in which all diversity of the sense-world is can- 
celed. The Understanding employs Abstraction 
to attain the counterpart thereof in Generaliza- 



440 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tion. Discrimination it uses, and even Definition, 
though not in the deepest sense. 

Among the fields occupied by the Understand- 
ing, that of Natural Science is prominent at the 
present time. The work of Comparison, which 
brings objects together, and unites them by like- 
ness and unlikeness, has been carried specially 
into Philology with great results. In the pro- 
cesses of Natural Science the Understanding is 
at work elaborating a term or category which 
expresses the unity in the many diversified facts 
of observation ; it is seeking the one inner princi- 
ple of them all, which principle is at last just 
itself. In the change of appearances, it finds the 
permanent, the self-identical, the Law which 
holds all multiplicity. 

Undoubtedly there are several different senses 
of the word Understanding, and even of its 
terms above mentioned. There is always the 
shallow and the profound use of the same word. 
A great book may be written some day, arrang- 
ing in due order all the categories of the Under- 
standing by their fundamental principle, and 
linking them together in an inner movement of 
Thought. Meanwhile we shall make the follow- 
ing gradation of this sphere, in which the general 
movement of the Ego manifests itself. 

The Understanding, then, must be seen as a 
process — the process of Identity as immediate; 
the Ego in the Understanding unites immediately 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 441 

what is distinct. Id its movement toward Iden- 
tity, it presupposes the different; but this Differ- 
ence is not yet posited from within, not yet 
developed. The Understanding, however, has 
its own kind of Difference, which we here call 
Distinction, and which the Understanding brings 
into the object from without. The stages are as 
follows : — 

I. Apprehension — the first seizing and iden- 
tifying of the object by the Ego. 

II. Distinction — the Understanding brings 
division and discrimination into the object for 
the purpose of unifying and identifying the 
same. 

III. Classification — the ordering of Distinc- 
tion into higher wholes, which process of Iden- 
tity finally reaches the Genus. 

When the Understanding has reached the 
Genus, its process of Identity (or Identification) 
is brought to a close, since the Genus at once 
moves into differentiation and brings forth 
species and individual. Manifestly this is the 
opposite movement from that of the Understand- 
ing. Here we catch a glimpse of the next 
sphere of Thought — Ratiocination. 

A word now upon the importance of the Un- 
derstanding. It works specially in the realm of 
the Particular; it seizes the world of detail, of 
appearance and multiplicity as it lies before us, 
and seeks to order it, to think it in its way. 



442 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

In utter separation and distraction the facts 
and events of existence are whirling confusedly 
before us, divided in Space and Time ; how shall 
the Ego ever put them together into something 
like a cosmos? This is the work of the Under- 
standing, primordial, a most important, stupend- 
ous work, never to be underrated. No wonder 
that the Englishman, most practical of mortals, 
rarely gets beyond the Understanding in his 
philosophy. The Understanding is the first con- 
dition of a regulated life and ordered activity; 
indeed it is largely the condition of Occidental 
civilization. Still it is not the entire Universe 
of Thought, rather is it the beginning and 
preparation thereof. 

I. Apprehension. 

This word means literally the taking hold on 
the outside, which was originally (in Latin) a 
physical act. From this it passed to an analo- 
gous mental act, which designates the first effort 
of the Understanding toward identifying the 
thing with itself. Apprehension is not a per- 
ception merely, though we may endeavor to 
apprehend a percept. It is the primal notion of 
the thing, the first penetration of the object by 
the Ego, seeking to unify the same with itself. 
The act is here immediate, unconscious, spon- 
taneous, being more a feeling of identity than a 



THE UNDEBSTANDING. 443 

knowing thereof; the Ego herein feels itself 
reaching beyond itself as mere subject, seiz- 
ing instinctively the object as its own and 
identifying the same with itself. Such is the 
prelude to the full work of the Understanding 
which is to follow. Yet this prelude has its 
process also, being itself a manifestation of the 
Ego. 

I. The immediate seizure of the object as 
such is the starting-point. If you wish to 
understand this window, you must first go out 
to it and seize it directly, without stopping and 
without reflection. Whatever the -object be, 
percept, image, concept, it has to be seized by 
the Ego immediately, taken possession of exter- 
nally by a simple fiat of the mind — the primor- 
dial act of the mental conquest of the world. 

II. This immediate appropriation of the thing 
is followed by an act of separation. You have 
seized the window as an external object, let us 
say ; now comes an inner identification of it, 
which involves its division into what is and 
what was. You recollect that you have seen 
a window before, or something like it; in order 
to identify this with that, you have to have the 
two before you. Such is now the dualism or 
separative act involved in all Apprehension, 
even the simplest. 

III. The identification and the ordering of the 
appropriated thing with the content of the Ego. 



444 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

That is, the apperceptive act of the Ego now 
enters and co-ordinates the object, whereby the 
latter is truly unified with and possessed by the 
Ego ; present is united with the past, and the 
object as a simple whole is taken up by 
the Ego. 

Such, then, is Apprehension; the Understand- 
ing in its process of Identity, has seized the 
thing or object as a single unit, undivided within 
itself, and has identified (made identical) the 
same with the Ego. But we have also noted 
that, in order to seize the object in this simplest, 
most immediate way, we have had to identify it 
with something else not itself, namely the Ego 
or some content thereof, and so have been forced 
to take up Difference in the process of Appre- 
hension. 

But now a deeper phase of Difference enters. 
The Understanding begins to put its own distinc- 
tions into the object ; having found out in the pro- 
cess of Apprehension that the object is different 
from itself (the Understanding), and has been 
mastered and identified, it will show this mastery 
over Difference by imposing the same upon the 
object. This new sphere of the Understanding 
comes up next for exposition. 

Apprehension, though it be simple, implicit, 
undeveloped, without real distinction in itself, 
shows the character of the Understanding as a 
phase of intellection. The individual passing 



THE UN DEB STANDING. 445 

through the world of sense, has not only to see 
and perceive, but to apprehend ; the object 
insists upon being apprehended, and the Ego 
insists upon apprehending. For the object has 
just this identification with the Ego as its destiny 
or end; and, on the contrary, the Ego must 
transcend its limit, and be one with the object, 
wherein lies just its true Self. 

A quick Apprehension (which is incipient or 
immediate Classification) is always an important 
power, in certain situations it is all-important. 
To seize the fact at once in its essence, and to 
co-ordinate it on the spot, is the instinctive 
identity of the realm of the Understanding; its 
suddenness makes it Apprehension. Still this 
has also its limitation ; it seeks for Distinction, 
and demands in its very nature to be mediated. 
Not without cause has Apprehension come to be 
regarded not only with anxiety, but as anxiety ; 
a lurking fear runs through its meaning, since it 
has the uncertainty of impulse and lacks media- 
tion with the rational principle of the Ego. 

II. Distinction. 

This is the second stage of the Understanding, 
which has already evolved itself out of the first, 
through the inner movement of the Ego, the 
latter being inherently the divisive, indeed the 
self-divisive. The Understanding still identifies, 



446 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYCHO/SIS, 

but it has discovered that it must distinguish in 
order to identify, even in the simple act of 
Apprehension. 

The Understanding, having found Difference 
in itself when it apprehended the object, and also 
the mastery of Difference in the same act, pro- 
ceeds to project Difference into the object, that 
is, it puts its own divisions and distinctions into 
the World of Things. This is the general fact 
about the realm of Distinction, which we are now 
entering. 

Distinction has, therefore, already been im- 
plicit or involved in Apprehension. The act of 
Identity presupposes the object as distinct from 
the Ego, is in itself an act of separation ; it must 
distinguish the thing before identifying it. 
Hence the unfolding of a complete act of Iden- 
tity calls up Distinction. The Understanding, 
having to identify that with itself which is other 
than itself, posits this otherness in its own move- 
ment ; that is, it posits Distinction. 

Thus in the realm of the Understanding rises 
division, analysis, separation, dualism, rises just 
out of its movement toward Identity. It divides 
up the object in a thousand ways ; having once 
started, its divisive tendency seems infinite. In- 
deed the Understanding can quite lose its unify- 
ing power, and become purely analytic, sepa- 
rative, critical. The present age is not a 
synthetic one, its spirit rests largely in this 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 447 

divisive stage of the Understanding, though the 
very purpose of dividing the object is to identify 
it more completely. The mind in such a state 
is divided within itself and against itself, it has 
attained absolute unrest. 

Now in this realm of Distinction, the counter 
movement sets in, and separation begins to 
separate from itself, and thus to cancel itself. 
The negative result cannot stay with itself, just 
because it is negative and hence self-undoing. 
In Distinction also there is a process of the 
Ego whose stages we shall mark and designate 
as Abstraction, Discrimination, and Classifica- 
tion. 

I. Abstraction is the Ego in its immediate act 
of separating and distinguishing. This power 
goes back to sensation even ; the five senses, 
each with its own bodily organ, requires a cor- 
poreal separation. The eye cannot give the 
fragrance of a flower, nor the ear its color. 
Such is the most primitive form of Abstrac- 
tion — the sensuous — and also the most imme- 
diate, since the Ego acts therein without volition 
and consciousness. But it also acts with con- 
scious purpose in Abstraction, dividing the 
object and separating some property from its 
totality. Every man may subject a piece of 
wood to his own Abstraction ; the carpenter, the 
scientist, ship-builder, the kindergardner, the 
magician, will each regard a tree from his own 



448 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

point of view, which abstracts some quality of 
the object and puts its stress upon that. 

The immediate, separative power of the human 
mind may, therefore, be named Abstraction, be- 
ing that activity of the Ego which takes away 
(abstracts) some property, element, or part 
which belongs to the total object. The Ego has 
to abstract in order to obtain the simplest knowl- 
edge, the Ego itself being divided within itself in 
order to know itself. It must also divide the 
object in order to know the same, that is, to 
identify it with itself. Hence the Understand- 
ing specially must abstract in order to reach its 
Identity. 

On the other hand, the process of Abstraction 
is seen to pre-suppose a total object, one that is 
identical with itself, as yet undivided. For it is 
Abstraction which first makes the division. 
Hence Apprehension, which is the seizing of the 
object in its simplicity, as a simple whole, goes 
before Abstraction, which is the first step toward 
complexity. Thus the Ego, as it is self-divided, 
must divide the entire objective world in order 
to overcome the same and reach forth to a 
knowledge thereof. 

Such is the kernel of the meaning of Abstrac- 
tion, around which is gathered a great variety of 
usage. We hear of abstract thought, which 
term seems to designate thought as distinct from 
the percept and the image. Then again we hear 



THE UNDEB STANDING. 449 

of abstractions in a contemptuous sense, evidently 
as distinct from the realities of life, and from the 
concrete world. It must be confessed that there 
is some ground for the discredit into which Ab- 
straction and its culture have fallen. Plainly it 
cannot give the whole truth of the object; it 
picks up some phase or property, more or less 
external, and deems that the vital matter. And 
all separation is really negative, negative to the 
entirety of the object. 

It is manifest, therefore, that Abstraction can- 
not reach the completeness of Thought, or even 
of the Understanding. It cannot rise to the ge- 
netic movement of the object, which is that which 
Thought grasps ; at most it leads to an external 
combination of properties which is commonly 
called Generalization, and which will be con- 
sidered later on. Still, Abstraction has its place 
in the activity of the Ego, which has to divide 
even the sensuous object before the senses can 
perceive. Abstraction cracks the sheil of ex- 
ternality by its separation, and opens the door 
to knowledge. 

If we note carefully the process of Abstraction, 
we find that it separates the one property or 
attribute of the object, holds fast to that, and 
disregards the rest of the object ; it takes from, 
clings to, and throws away. But how about that 
which is thrown away? It too i£ some part, 
phase, or attribute of the object ; moreover, it 

29 



450 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

is also separated from the totality. When the 
Ego passes over to it, and holds it fast too, then 
it is as much a thing abstracted as the first. 
Thus Abstraction has come to an end; it no 
longer simply takes away the one, but also takes 
up the other, the second part or attribute, which 
it ranges alongside of the first. The distinctive 
act of Abstraction has thus passed over into a 
new act, which is a twofold or duplicated Ab- 
straction, yet with sides related. 

II. Discrimination we shall call this new act 
of the Ego. It is still Distinction, but deepened ; 
there are now two properties or parts which are 
held together, yet kept asunder. Each side of 
the Distinction has equal validity, is looked at, 
and even judged by itself. The one has as much 
attention as the other; they are carefully dis- 
tinguished, and therein are treated just alike. 
A man of Discrimination is, first of all, impar- 
tial, even non-partisan, keeping both sides in the 
balance of his mind. 

Abstraction is one-sided, partial ; Discrimina- 
tion is two-sided, and thence becomes many- 
sided. From this window-pane I can abstract 
one property, say hardness, and leave all the 
rest out. But then the rest of the window-pane 
becomes an Abstraction; it too is separated 
from the hardness, which is for it likewise the 
rest of the window-pane ; both are therein alike. 
In other words, Abstraction, in rejecting the 



THE UNDEBSTANDING. 451 

second phase or element of the object, makes the 
same abstract as well as the first, calls forth just 
that which it threw away. It thus contradicts 
itself and passes into the higher act of Discrim- 
ination. The object cannot remain one-sided 
(abstract) without contradicting its nature ; 
just as little can the Ego, which is inherently 
self-dividing, and keeps both sides, subject and 
object, in every act of consciousness. 

Discrimination is not confined to the twofold, 
though that is its basis ; it just as well embraces 
the manifold. The window-pane has not only 
hardness, but also transparency, brittleness, 
figure, etc. All these properties being ab- 
stracted, are held by the Ego in act of Discrim- 
ination. They are so many units, separated, 
mutually externalized in the mind; thus the 
single object has reached a vast multiplicity 
through the distinctions of the Understanding. 

Still all these diverse properties of the object 
are held together in Discrimination, which is thus 
a bond uniting the twofold or the manifold. It 
is an element or principle which combines the 
two distinct things, and which is the common 
ground of agreement. But thus Discrimination, 
whose function was to hold asunder the parts and 
attributes given by Abstraction, is doing the very 
opposite; it is not only holding them asunder 
(which is also the holding them together), but 
also it has shown itself the ground of their agree- 



452 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ment, their point of union. The Ego recognizes 
the new stage of the process and gives it a name. 

III. This is Comparison. In the ordinary sense 
of the words, we discriminate objects and then we 
compare them ; we bring them together by like- 
ness or unlikeness. Of two windows, we abstract 
a property from each, say form ; then we hold 
the two in separation, we discriminate their 
forms ; then we put them together by the com- 
mon property, we compare. Some property 
thus is made the uniting third between the two, 
or medium of Comparison, which is the mediat- 
ing of the distinct objects. The stress is now 
laid upon that which unites, and not upon that 
which separates. 

In the act of Comparison, the Ego is return- 
ing to Identity. It still keeps the distinction 
between object or objects, but it places alongside 
the same their oneness, or their agreement. It 
cannot rest in Discrimination, but proceeds to 
combine what it has discriminated. In a multi- 
plicity of objects it notes the common element, 
since the Ego itself is just this common element 
in all separation. It repeats itself in observing 
the same attribute in different things ; this repeti- 
tion is its assertion of self-identity. 

As before remarked, Comparison has become 
an important category in the science of to-day, 
but it is often very superficially applied. Hence 
arises the question concerning the basis of Com- 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 453 

parison. What attribute is to be taken as the 
medium of comparing languages, for instance? 
Similarity in the external form of the words will 
not do; two languages may have certain forms 
of speech quite alike, yet be of wholly different 
origin and character. So the essential medium 
of Comparison must be found before a truly 
comparative science is possible ; the agreement 
must not be superficial and accidental but inherent 
and necessary. 

Herein it is plain that the point which unites, 
the mediating principle of Comparison (tertium 
comparationis) has itself become divided, though 
its purpose was to be the unit in which all was 
to be unified. Distinction has entered just this 
identity upon which Comparison was founded, 
and the latter now, instead of uniting, will drive 
asunder the manifold phenomena which are to 
be compared. Thus it is manifest that Compar- 
ison has changed, is divided within itself. The 
new demand is that the mediating principle be 
internal, that the agreement between the objects 
compared be essential. Herewith however we 
pass into another domain. 

Distinction, which began with making Ab- 
stractions from the total object, then holding 
them together and asunder in Discrimination, 
then uniting them in a medium through Com- 
parison, has run its course, and reached that 
which is internal and essential as the ground of 



454 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

unity into which it (Distinction) passes. The 
Understanding again asserts its underlying prin- 
ciple of Identity. Of course there will still arise 
Distinctions, but they will be essential Distinc- 
tions ; that is, they will, be grounded and unified 
in the one fact of essentiality. 



■III. Classification. 

Herewith the Understanding has reached its 
third and highest stage, which we shall call 
Classification, inasmuch as all Distinction is sub- 
ordinated to a higher unity called the Class. 

That is, Distinction still exists, but is subor- 
dinated to the principle of Identity. Classifica- 
tion is not the immediate seizing of the object 
and identifying it with the Ego, which act we saw 
in Apprehension ; this is rather the comprehen- 
sion of the object mediated through the process 
of Distinction. Classification, therefore, is the 
union of the two preceding stages of the Under^ 
standing, and it arises directly out of Discrimn 
nation and Comparison, passing from the equality 
of the various attributes to their subordination. 
That is, Distinction, hitherto paramount, must 
now come under unity or the Class. 

Classification is a most important fact in the 
development of the mind. Without it we would 
be overwhelmed by the multiplicity of the world; 



THE UNDEBSTANDWG. 455 

its infinite division and subdivision would have 
no counteraction, and would cut up the Ego into 
microscopic particles. Man begins to master the 
diversity of nature by binding it up into classes, 
and keeping them, when so bound up, ready for 
use. Thus he easily handles in bulk what would 
otherwise be an endless task. 

In classifying objects the Understanding is 
reaching out for their creative principle, for that 
which differentiates them, yet restores them to 
unity ; the striving of it is for the one which pro- 
duces the manifold, yet remains therein itself. 
Classification also has its movement, always going 
more and more toward the organic out of the ex- 
ternal. This movement begets a vast number of 
categories which mark its shadings; we shall 
select three sets in which the process of the Ego 
reflects itself. 

I. There is, first, that which we shall call Gen- 
eralization, which term we shall confine to the ex- 
ternal Classification of objects by some mark or 
property which is seized by the mind imme- 
diately. In all languages of civilized peoples are 
such classes expressed in a word, as a forest, 
which is made up of many trees, an army, which 
is made up of many men, etc. Something in 
common, which is apparent at once, causes a 
number of particulars to be grouped together and 
to be expressed in a general term. The work of 
the mind is instantaneous, immediate. To be 



456 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

sure, we have to know the purpose of the class 
before we can classify ; the Senate is a collection 
of men united in a certain purpose (say law- 
making), which I have to understand in order to 
form the class. 

In like manner the so-called abstract nouns 
are formed. We observe the color red in a 
number of objects, in the flower, insect, coat, 
etc. ; then we form the abstract term redness, 
which is the product of Generalization. Through 
it we reach beyond the sensuous particulars into 
the supersensible act of the mind. Thus the 
Ego proceeds to master the multiplicity of the 
external world; it subjects the same to some 
attribute which the objects, or a group of them, 
have in common. 

The important part which Generalization plays 
in the formation of language is manifest. What 
is separate and particular, it joins together into 
a whole of some sort ; yet in order to seize the 
separate and particular, it must divide. So the 
double character of the Ego manifests itself in 
Generalization, it differences and identifies, shows 
analysis and synthesis, or decomposition and 
recomposition, in the same process. Still the 
purpose is to bind together the sheaf, though we 
have to collect separately the straws. Thus the 
Ego, thrown into the world of multiplicity, 
begins to order it at once, by seizing the 
scattered straws (on the wheatfield of Time aiad 



THE TJNDEB8TANDING. 457 

Space), binds them into sheaves, puts them into 
a shock, then into a stack. 

Philosophers have discussed the question much 
whether language originates in proper names 
(which is the particular) or in general terms or 
appellatives. The disputants on each side are 
about equally divided in number and authority 
(Hamilton's Metaphysics, p. 497). Now it is 
easy to demonstrate each half provided the other 
half be disregarded. On the oue hand, lan- 
guage does move with the Ego from the special 
to the general, from the percept of the senses 
to thought. But whence the special or particu- 
lar with which it starts? Evidently it is obtained 
from a total of some kind by division, which the 
Ego makes. So the question as to the origin of 
language is quite like most other kinds of origin : 
the starting-point is really the end and the end 
is the starting-point. A discussion of the Primum 
Cognitum will turn out somewhat as that other 
famous discussion did : Which was first, the Egg 
or the Hen ? 

What is amusing, both sides use the same fact 
to illustrate their respective theories ; they take 
the child beginning to speak. " The child calls 
all men by the name of papa; " that is, it passes 
from the particular man, its father, to the gen- 
eral man (Locke et alii). On the other hand, 
it must have the general, man, first, in order to 
apply its particular man papa to the same 



458 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

(Leibnitz et alii). A third way Hamilton thinks 
he has found, stating that the child proceeds 
from the vague to the definite ; but this is really 
a going from the general to the particular. 

Now the truth is that the child is a total, 
though undeveloped Ego, and must show in its 
mental activity the total process of the Ego. 
The child unquestionably particularizes, it 
goes from the total to its parts, from the 
general concept, man, to a particular man. 
Equally certain is it that the child genera- 
lizes, has the element of unity, and rises from 
the particular man to the general. Both are 
simply phases of the one process of the infantile 
Ego, which would not be at all with only one of 
its sides. Even the human body shows a similar 
doubleness in what has been called its bi-lateral 
symmetry. Suppose we divide it at the line of 
junction of the two sides, what becomes of that 
process which is called life? Such is also the 
effect of dividing the Ego, namely, the loss of 
its activity, of its process, which is not division 
alone, but also unification ; a point which has 
its significance in education. 

We have now classified the external world of 
sense by external marks, grouping objects into 
classes, and rising into abstract terms which 
reach beyond the senses. The Ego with its 
distinctions thus appears as classifier and adjusts 
the world to its categories ; it no longer takes 



THE UNDEBSTANDING. 459 

some external sign, but seizes the essential 
element in objects and makes that the ground of 
Classification. 

II. Hence we have the internal and essential 
as opposed to the external and accidental; the 
distinction between Essence and Appearance is 
now to enter the objective world and classify the 
same. There is a vast quantity of terms express- 
ing the manifold shadings of activity in this 
field; we shall take three which reflect the 
movement of the Ego in a general way : Cause, 
Force, Law. 

lo When we ask for the cause of the existent 
thing, the Ego has separated it into its present 
form and appearance, and those which it once 
had. The wet in the road was caused by the 
rain last night; the rain is the source, origin, 
cause. Thus the whole world divides itself into 
Cause and Effect, which, however, are held 
together by the Ego — the Cause being the 
primal, essential element, without which there 
would be no Effect. 

Such is the immediate or material Cause, the 
passing of one form of existence into another 
externally. Undoubtedly it is a great advance 
for the sensuous mind to inquire of the present 
appearance, Whence? Felix qui poluit causas 
cognoscere rerum. The spirit refuses to rest in 
the moment and what it brings, but seeks a total 
even of the senses ; the immediate will not satisfy, 



460 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. < 

it must be mediated somehow, though in the 
most superficial way. Hence the idea of causa- 
tion, which separates the world into Cause and 
Effect, which goes on deepening till it reaches 
the idea of self cause (causa sui). 

The Cause is the primordial, the original; 
the rain causes the wet. But what compels it to 
rain? The vapor is driven together, is con- 
densed and then follows the precipitation. The 
active Cause is itself caused and compelled to its 
Effect. Thus behind or into the Cause enters 
the notion of Force. 

2. Force is the moving principle in Cause, 
which thus divides into the moving and the 
moved. Such is the new separation; the world 
we found separating itself into Cause and Effect, 
but Cause we find separating itself into Force 
and its Manifestation. The real separative energy 
which produces the phenomenal world we now 
seem to have reached. 

Force, however, having manifested itself, 
ceases, its realization is just its negation. The 
energies of nature which produce the thunder 
shower, vent themselves, and are gone; their 
appearance is their evanishment. But what is 
this evanishment? Force no longer manifests 
itself, it has returned to identity with itself, 
which is its passivity or potentiality; when it 
differences itself, and becomes other, then it 
manifests itself, is active. But this identity has 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 461 

within it mediation, being no longer immediate; 
it has been mediated by Manifestation, and is no 
longer itself, having canceled within itself the 
difference. 

The identity into which all manifestation, 
difference, multiplicity is canceled, yet which 
has the same as its content, is now the result. 

3. This is Law, which is the permanent, that 
which is like to itself, but which contains all the 
multiplicity of the world of appearance. Law is 
the Identity which has its own Difference within 
itself, which manifests itself in all Manifestation. 
Force, in manifesting itself, passes into its other 
and vanishes; Law, in manifesting itself, mani- 
fests its other as itself and endures just in Mani- 
festation, endures through all the change of 
appearances. 

Law has within itself the world of multiplicity, 
difference, manifestation, as ideal, not posited, 
not real ; when we speak of the laws of nature, 
we mean that which is permanent in the fleeting 
phenomena, the necessary inner unity which is in 
all appearance. Difference is in the Law, hence 
this is the Law of (or over) the Difference, which 
Law is Identity. Law of attraction expresses, 
first, the identity of all bodies, their oneness; yet 
this oneness manifests itself through Difference, 
which it has canceled. The statutory Law has 
Difference within it, the command and the punish- 
ment for violation. That is, the negation of the 



462 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Identity is met by a negation. Thus it has (1) 
the command, which is Identity enforcing obedi- 
ence and conformity ; it has (2) the difference or 
the negative, which is the violation; it has (3) 
the penalty, which is the negation of the negative. 
Still further, the conception of a world-justice is 
the complete conception of the rule of Law. 
The good is immediate identity with Justice, or 
the Divine Order; but if the deed be negative, 
it is to be brought home to the doer by Justice, 
which thus cancels the negative act, and returns 
to identity. 

Law, therefore, has simple Identity, then has 
Difference, then Difference canceled. So it com- 
pletes its cycle; it rests not in multiplicity, not 
in change, but cancels the same and is the fixed 
and unchanging amid change. 

The limitation of Law is that it has no perfect 
return to Identity with self. It negates Differ- 
ence which is opposed to Identity, negates the 
multiplicity of appearance which is opposed to 
Unity, but it remains negative in its negation, it 
does not become positive, and posit Identity as 
such with its Difference. So it is that Justice 
punishes the criminal act of the man, undoes his 
deed, without touching his Ego, his self-identity 
from which the deed springs. The law of at- 
traction never brings about a complete unity of 
bodies, they never reach the center; else indeed 
matter would be self-centered, having the com- 



THE UNDER STANDING. 463 

plete self -return — Ego. The Law of Change 
is the Identity which cancels Change, yet leaves 
it Change still ; the unchanging element (Law or 
Identity) in Change is just Change; So Law, 
having transcended the External of Appearance 
and made itself the Internal, the Unchanging, 
drops back into the External in its negative ac- 
tion. After all, Punishment in Law is external, 
it strikes from the outside what is outside, some- 
thing deeper must reach the real Individual. The 
Identity of Law must become positive, must 
posit the Appearance, and not negate it; Iden- 
tity must differentiate itself and remain with 
itself in its Difference. Thus we get beyond 
Law into a higher Law, which reaches Difference 
from within. 

In fact, the distinction between Internal and 
External has run its course; the External has 
forced itself into Law and shown its own neces- 
sity, its own essential nature. That which was 
outside and contingent has gone inside, or rather 
the inside has become outside just as well ; the 
realm of manifestation, of difference, of multi- 
plicity, has shown itself to be essential also, it is 
not to be put down even by Law, by the abso- 
lute power of Identity. 

Accordingly Classification enters a new stage. 
It first took some external sensuous property and 
subordinated multiplicity to that ; then it seized 
some form of the Internal and reduced all ex- 



464 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

ternality and difference to that inner oneness 
and Identity which swallows up the individual 
object — Cause, Force, Law. But Law has pro- 
duced mere external conformity, and it, the 
Internal, quite loses the Internal; its Classifica- 
tion (subsumption of the particular object) is 
from the outside at last, being external to the 
thing subsumed. Now the world of particularity 
or difference asserts its right to be subordinated 
from within ;• it must be classified according to 
its nature ; Difference is not now a mere appear- 
ance, the shadowy reflection of the inner essence, 
but is itself essential too. Identity has reached 
the point of classifying its differences. 

III. This kind of Classification may be called 
the organic; it organizes the particular object 
through the latter's structural totality. The 
animal has sensation and locomotion, this is the 
fundamental fact of its organism, which gives 
the class animal. Thus all objects which have 
sensation are unified, show Identity in their 
structure ; sensation is the Identity of the animal 
body, its unity. Still this Identity is differenced, 
divided, is at every point of the organism, 
which, though separated, asserts its unity by 
sensation. The body affirms Identity against the 
other or the external object at every point. 

The animal organism having declared its unity 
by sensation now differentiates itself into two 
great Classes — Vertebrates and Invertebrates, in 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 465 

which the Spinal Column, or just that central 
unification of the organism through sensation 
divides itself. Thus it will be seen that the 
Identity which makes the one Class, divides 
within itself and forms two sub-Classes, each of 
which manifests the unity of the Class, though in 
different ways. Thus the organism divides, 
while still maintaining its oneness in sensation. 
Still further the Vertebrates classify themselves 
by dividing their unity according to its varied 
manifestations. 

We have now reached a point at which the 
Identity divides itself and yet maintains itself in 
the division; the unity manifests itself by multi- 
plicity, but this multiplicity constitutes the 
unity. The structural Idea differentiates itself, 
yet in all the differences and particulars, the 
structural Idea is what makes the class, is what 
gives the basis of Classification. The Orni- 
thorhynchus is said to have the beak of a duck, 
but the body of an otter ; its organic totality 
must classify it, not the beak. 

Very important is the Structural Idea as the 
basis of Classification in literature. A great 
poem is an organic totality, which must first be 
seized in its fundamental fact or thought, in the 
point where it is one and identical with its*elf ; 
then it must be seen differentiating itself into 
its parts, which are organic members; that is, 
each member must show itself as a member of 

30 



466 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE ^PSYCHOSIS. 

the whole, having the unity in itself, though it 
be but a part. The identity of the work of art 
passes over into its own distinctions, which con- 
stitute the one vital organic Whole. 

Thus Classification has become Organization ; 
the One, the Idea, separates itself within itself, 
creates its own multiplicity, forms itself into 
Classes which are just itself. Classification can- 
not be said to subordinate now ; multiplicity, the 
objective world, is not put into Classes from the 
outside or from the inside by the Understanding ; 
it classifies itself, that is, organizes itself. The 
process of unification is carried -up to the genus 
which unfolds the species and the individual out 
of itself. 

With the Generic as the self-unfolding out of 
the One or self-identical, we pass beyond the 
sphere of the Understanding proper, whose 
category 'we declared to be Identity. In the last 
stage of Classification, the Understanding 
organized the Difference into the Genus ; it 
recognized the members as organic, did not cancel 
them into mere uniformity, but into the Genus. 
But the Genus must generate, must create Dif- 
ference, and this is no longer the Distinctions of 
the Understanding, which it finds in the world 
and reduces to unity, but the creation of the 
Genus, its self-diremption into its own species 
and individuals. Such an act,. however, lies be 
yond the Understanding, which can at most 



THE UNDERSTANDING. . 467 

clagsify into a Genus, but caiiDot proceed gener- 
ically. - 

Historical. The philosophy of the English 
mind for quite three hundred years has been 
chiefly a philosophy of the Understanding in 
contradistinction to a philosophy of Reason or 
of the Idea. Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, down to 
Mill and Spencer, all the great names of English 
Thought, belong to the kingdom of the Under- 
standing. To the same belongs essentially the 
Scotch school also, yet with an intermingling 
here and there of more ideal elements, and with 
a deeper religious instinct, which calls a halt to 
the negative, skeptical side of the Understanding. 
The English mind deals with the practical, de- 
mands utility, must see the immediate use of the 
principle as an organon of some sort to meet the 
present need, which i3 indeed pressing. 

In other words, the Understanding is the 
handmaid of the Will by its very nature, and so 
appeals to the very essence of English character. 
If Thought ever reaches the point at which it 
seeks to justify itself to itself, the Englishman 
will ask, What's the use? I can't make a steam- 
ship with it, or rule India by such means ; cui 
bono? He must have a thought which serves his 
Will, serves it directly and in a hurry ; such is 
his life and his inmost consciousness; the English 
are the great will-people of this earth. Still 
the function of philosophy is ultimately to make 



468 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Thought transparent to itself, to grasp itself as 
its own end and not as the mere instrument of 
the Will. 

Yet the Understanding in recent times has 
pushed itself forward to the point at which it 
begins to see its own limits. Even in Nature it 
is found that abstraction, comparison, experi- 
ment, classification, look to something upon 
which they all depend, and of which they are a 
more or less faint reflection. There is at present 
a class of English writers, who, starting from 
the Understanding, take delight in driving it into 
a corner and breaking it upon its own bounds. 
From this and other indications, the hope rises 
that the English mind, just through the prac- 
tical Understanding, may yet ascend into the 
realm of the speculative Reason and create a true 
philosophy. 

In American Thought there is essentially the 
same substrate ; its philosophers so-called have 
been British mainly, manifesting for the most 
part a transplanted British mind, being men of 
the Understanding in so far as they have philoso- 
phised (which is not much). But a new thread 
or many threads are at present being woven into 
the American philosophic fabric, chiefly from 
Germany, whereof we cannot here give any 
reckoning. 

The grand Anglo-Saxon interrogation is, 
What's the use? The conception of self-end 



THE UNDERSTANDING. 469 

is indeed hard for us, quite alien, yet it is ever- 
present to the philosopher in all his wanderings 
through the two worlds, finite and infinite. He 
must, of course, duly value the Understanding, 
not despising it and its work by any means, but 
he must transcend its limits and behold it passing 
into a new sphere. 



SECTION SECOND. - BATIOCINATION. 

The first thing which the Ego finds in Katio- 
cination is the object differentiating itself from 
within, unfolding itself into its species and 
individuals. Thus the Ego conceives the Genus, 
which is itself the act of Conception ; the creative 
process of the Ego grasps the creative process 
of the object, finds the same to be its own, finds 
itself to be the generic principle of the object. 

Accordingly, the Ego moves forth to develop 
out of itself the Form of all Objectivity, which 
will take many particular Forms (these we shall 
hereafter see as Judgments). It will proceed to 
create a world of Forms, into which it puts the 
objective world (by an act of Judgment). The 
Ego will ratiocinate the entire realm of exter- 
nality, will translate the same into its own 
Forms, which, however, it has evolved out of its 
Conception of the object as generic. 
(470) 



BA TIO CINA Tl ON. 471 

Thus the Ego judges in Ratiocination, it sub- 
sumes the object under itself (the Ego), under 
its own Forms, whereby the objective world 
falls into a vast multiplicity of Judgments which 
must not only be organized into classes, but 
mediated one with the other. The mediating 
Judgment thus arises and produces the Syllogism. 

We may here state in advance that we use the 
word Eatiocination for expressing the general 
process in which Conception, Judgment and Rea- 
soning are the three stages. These three terms 
are familiar from books on Logic, but they are 
seldom, if ever, treated as one movement of the 
Ego, which manifests the Psychosis, and therein 
unites them not only with one another but also 
with the total process of Psychology. 

The word genus is connected with generate, 
genesis, generation, and goes back to an old 
Aryan root which means to create. Its nearest 
equivalent in Latin is gens, which, in the Roman 
social order, was conceived as the primal cre- 
ative unit, out of which families arose and then 
individuals. Every Roman had three names; 
that of his gens (or genus) was the central one, 
that of his family (species) was at the end, while 
his individual designation came first. Caius 
Julius Caesar was of the Julian gens, the name of 
his family was Csesar, his personal name was 
Caius. Thus every Roman individual showed in 
his three names the triple process of Conception: 



472 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the genus (gens) differentiates itself into species 
(here families) which bring forth the individual. 
The Koman Ego, the great form-maker and law- 
giver, formulates its own process in naming 
itself. 

The Understanding, having unfolded into 
Classification, has reached the Genus as the 
most concrete identity of the object with itself. 
But the Genus, when reached, at once differen- 
tiates itself and becomes species and individuals, 
which are now posited by the generic process 
from within. Thus begins this new sphere, that 
of Eatiocination, which has in it the Difference, 
yet as posited by the Genus, which is in itself 
the side of the Unity or Identity. The Differ- 
ence in the sphere of Eatiocination, therefore, 
must always show whence it came, must show 
what posited it, namely the Genus. Yet, on the 
other hand, the Difference insists upon being dif- 
ferent and not identical, it is going to have its 
own career, its own process; its essence is to 
differentiate, not to unify. 

If the Understanding be the process of Iden- 
tity, Eatiocination is the process of Difference. 
The Ego in the first case identifies with itself the 
object or some separate phase of the object ; the 
Ego in the second case differentiates the object, 
posits its inner Difference and puts the chief 
stress thereon. I say I understand the word, 
that is, I identify its meaning with myself in 



BAT10CWATI0N. 473 

my knowledge; I unconsciously separate its 
meaning from its form, and disregard the latter. 
Yet the word has just the differentiation into 
meaning and form ; Ratiocination takes it up 
and unfolds it; when I seek the rationale of an 
object, here of the word, I wish to see it develop 
generically into its Difference, into form and 
meaning. 

The Understanding also, as we have already 
noted, separates and discriminates, but not gen- 
erically; it makes more or less superficial dis- 
tinctions in the object, taking what it wants and 
disregarding the rest; it differences from the out- 
side and not from the inside, the Genus being 
self-differencing. 

Accordingly in Ratiocination the Difference 
has become explicit, inherent in the object, 
while in the Understanding it was implicit, 
brought to the object from the outside. The 
process of Thought as ratiocinative is uttered 
(outered), externalized, expressed into Form, 
which is, however, the Form of the inner generic 
activity. Ratiocination is Thought formalized; 
the latter now creates its Forms, which are 
indeed different from it and opposite, yet are 
made into a mirror for reflecting back to it its 
own process. 

Herein, of course, we trace the work of the 
Ego, which always has in itself separation and 
difference. The knowing Ego must separate its 



474 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

knowledge from itself in order to know, and to 
find its divisions. Such is the emphatic point 
now, but in Eatiocination the Ego will manifest 
its unity also, it will hold its divisions together 
within itself. We shall have, therefore, a move- 
ment of differentiation, and yet a sub-movement 
of unification. The Ego will show itself as One 
in its deepest distinctions. So all forms of Eatio- 
cination have the Copula, implied or expressed, 
which is the binding mean of the differences. 

Eatiocination has also its process, being the 
activitv of the Ego in uttering itself in its own 
forms. This process will unfold from its germ 
in Conception to its complete reality in Season- 
ing. Therein we behold what is ordinarily called 
Logic, or the logical movement of Thought in its 
formal, separative aspect. The Ego will now 
differentiate its own logical Forms, which thus 
become its content also in the ratiocinative 
process. 

Starting from the Genus, or the unity reached 
by the Understanding, we shall see it unfold into 
the triple process of Eatiocination, which from 
this point of view is the movement of Difference. 

I. Conception — the Difference implicit, inter- 
nal, yet showing the process within itself. 

II. Judgment — the Difference explicit, exter- 
nalized, showing itself as twofold, externally 
united by the Copula. 

III. Eeasoning — the Difference is now medi- 



BATIOCINATION. 475 

ated, through the Middle Term, which, however, 
is itself external, and thereby shows the process 
as threefold. Thus the ratiocinative process has 
revealed the mediation of the Ego, but still as 
formal and external. 

By scanning the above process, we observe 
that Ratiocination is the evolution of the Middle 
Term for mediating the extremes (Difference) of 
the Ego. Judgment is the Difference of the Ego 
posited ; Reasoning is the attempt to harmonize 
the two sides by finding the reconciling term. 
This unfolding of the Copula or binding-word 
reveals itself in three corresponding stages. (1) 
In Conception the Copula is unexpressed, yet 
present in the immediate act of the Ego which 
unites in itself its three terms. (2) In Judg- 
ment the Copula is expressed, explicit, and binds 
together the Individual and the Generic, or the 
Subject and the Predicate, yet this bond is ex- 
ternal also, as it is simply that of being, for 
example, John is a. man. (3) In Reasoning the 
Copula is developed into the Middle Term, which 
renders the Syllogism possible. 

As we are now in the realm of division, we 
may as well make a further distinction. It has 
been already set forth that Ratiocination unfolds 
the process of the Ego externalizing itself into 
its own Forms ; thus there are present the two 
sides in every stage ; the inner activity or pro- 
cess of the Ego and the corresponding outer 



476 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Form or Product. Herein again the Difference 
shows itself as essential. Note, therefore, the 
distinction as well as the connection between (1) 
Conception and Concept, (2) Judgment and 
Proposition, (3) Reasoning and Syllogism. 
Logic as the Science of the external Forms of 
Thought puts its stress upon the latter series — 
Concept, Proposition, Syllogism. But Psychol- 
ogy, whose essence is the movement of the Ego, 
puts or should put its stress upon the former 
series — Conception, Judgment, Eeasoning. Still 
the two sides must be united by the Copula 
which also has its stages of unfolding in 
Ratiocination. 

Thus in each of the three stages of the ratiocin- 
ative process we behold a triple division, which we 
may call in general, the inner activity or Mean- 
ing, the outer Form, and the Copula. All three 
are in implicit unity, yet are unfolding into sep- 
aration, in Conception ; all three are explicitly 
separated in Judgment, yet joined immediately 
by the Copula ; all three are fully separated yet 
joined mediately by the Middle Term in Reason- 
ing. In the movement of each as well as in the 
movement of all we are to see the Psychosis, 
which therein begins to find its own complete 
formula, and which has insisted from the begin- 
ning that each single act of the Ego reveals the 
total process of the Ego. 

Indeed Ratiocination is the express formulation 



RATIOCINATION. 477 

of the Ego ; the Ego formulates itself, makes itself 
into its other (the external) which nevertheless 
bears its complete impress. But Ratiocination 
leaves the Ego external, while this is internal 
also ; it formulates the Ego, bat this act of 
formulation must also be formulated, must indeed 
formulate itself. Herewith, however, we pass 
out of the sphere of Ratiocination. 

Looking forward and taking a sweep over the 
whole field of Ratiocination, we observe that the 
Ego manifests the Psychosis, moving through 
the three stages of the process in Conceiving, 
Judging, and Reasoning ( Syllogizing ). The Ego 
in the first stage conceives the object as Genus 
differencing itself through itself, which is the 
conceotive act. The Ego having thus conceived 
the object and identified this object's differentia- 
tion with its own, proceeds to judge, that is, to 
subsume the objective world under its own dif- 
ferentiation, w-hich is its Form of Judgment. But 
this Form of Judgment manifests itself in many 
particular Judgments, with difference, opposi- 
tion, conflict. So there rises the intermediate 
Judgment between the two differing Judgments 
with its Middle Term, the total process of which 
gives the Syllogism. 

But the mediation through the Syllogism is 
imperfect, being a Judgment and having all the 
imperfection of a Judgment, which subsumes 
the object under the higher or the highest (sum- 



478 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

mum genus), but cannot subsume or mediate this 
highest. The Syllogism has, therefore, no final 
or absolute mediation of the objective world; 
the Syllogism cannot indeed mediate its owu 
terms, or itself; thus it calls for a new process, 
that of Reason. At present, however, we are to 
unfold in detail the process of Ratiocination. 

I. Conception. 

Already the Understanding sought to reach 
the true Conception of the Thing, to think the 
creative act which made the same. But it came 
to the Thing from the outside, and elaborated 
its material in that way ; still it attained, through 
its category of Identity, unto the Genus. But 
the Genus at once divides within itself by its 
own creative activity, and we pass into our pres- 
ent sphere. When the division of the Thing 
becomes internal for us, we have found its 
rationale, and behold its unfolding through 
itself. To be sure, we are to recognize this 
self-unfolding and to make it ours too. 

Such is, in general, Conception; it starts with 
the Genus or the Generic, which differences itself 
into the Particular, which last returns and unites 
with the Generic and becomes the Individual. 
This is the movement of Conception, which is the 
immediate form of Ratiocination 4 the separation 
is as yet internal, implicit, ideal, not yet posited 



RATIOCINATION. 479 

and real. It is the potential form of all reality, 
it is the Ego as pure Subject ; it is Thought 
which now seizes its own creative germ and un- 
folds it into all Being. 

Conception must, therefore, be grasped on the 
side of its creativity. It is just that which pro- 
duces and produces out of itself. It is the grand 
generative principle in the Universe, whose 
essence is to unfold through itself. To be sure, 
the modern usage of the word Conception seems 
to have bleached out this vigorous sense, 
which the word has in old-English writers and 
which is still preserved in the Bible. The Con- 
ception of Nature is fecundation, by which the 
object is to reproduce its kind, is the Genus 
which must particularize itself and thereby bring 
forth the Individual. The conceptive act of 
mind is creativity, which is the original fiat of 
the Ego when it divides within itself and be- 
comes object, yet remains with itself and is 
subject. All through Psychology we have seen 
that the Ego must create the object in order to 
know it in any way. 

The spiritual elements which go to make up 
the process of Conception are the Generic (Uni- 
versal), the Particular (Specific, Species), the 
Individual (Singular). While Conception, to 
be Conception and to perform its act, must have 
these three elements in it, they are not now in a 
state of separation, they are on the contrary one, 



480 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

and one process. Still they are implicitly dif- 
ferent, are indeed just the Different in itself, 
which is to become explicit. 

The true Conception is the Ego, and we may 
take an act of mind to illustrate the three ele- 
ments — Universal, Particular, Individual. (1) 
The whole mind acts in reading the sentence be- 
fore you, if it be read with a knowledge of what 
it means. This is no part of the mind, but the 
totality which acts and determines itself in a 
given direction. Such is the universal element. 

(2) Yet the whole mind acting, must take a 
specific direction in reading this page; your 
mind specializes itself, is not the pure Universal, 
which is merely possibility of a certain direction 
and tendency. In such case your mind has 
become Particular (not a part), which is the 
element of separation, finitude, the determined. 

(3) But in this Particular the total mind 
manifests itself in getting out of the same and 
returning to itself. Otherwise it would lose 
itself in particularity, in division and details. 
Still further, the mind in being particular, 
remains its entire Self ; so, in reading this page, 
it shows its individuality, it is different therein 
from other individuals who may read it or not. 

Conception is not Perception nor is it the act 
of imaging ; it goes beyond both these mental 
stages to the ideal activity which is the essence 
of the percept or the image. It is true that I 



BATIOCWATION. 481 

have to reproduce the percept in order to have 
it ; I have to annul the outer extended object 
and then create it in order to perceive it or to 
sense it in any manner. Likewise the image can 
be obtained only through a reproduction or re- 
creative act. 

What is it to have a Conception of anything? 
It is to grasp the creative element thereof, that 
which produces, co-ordinates, and unites all the 
details. The Conception of a plant is the gen- 
eral principle (the Generic) of the vegetable 
organism unfolding into particulars through 
itself; the Conception of Hamlet is the seizing 
of the fundamental fact of his character, out of 
which rise all his thoughts and acts, which 
again combine and constitute his individuality. 

It is evident that Conception is not only general 
but genetic, it creates its particulars, its exter- 
nals. Conception is the germinal Idea, which 
divides within itself, expands and clothes itself 
with the details of its existence. The Concep- 
tion of the triangle is the grasping of that which 
makes the triangle inclose space by three straight 
lines. The Conception sees the triangle crea- 
tively, moving forth into being out of its gen- 
eric Idea and taking on the particular form of 
the triangle through its own necessity. The 
image of the triangle does not create it, the 
Conception does. 

We shall now behold Conception conceiving 

31 



482 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

itself, unfolding itself into its own creative pro- 
cess. As already stated, this has three stages, 
which show the Ego grasping itself in its own 
internal movement — the Generic, the Particu- 
lar, the Individual. The outcome of Conception 
is, therefore, the Individual, who, however, must 
have the whole generic process in himself. The 
individual man reproduces himself as individual 
physically, he also has the universally human in 
him, though he must be this particular man too ; 
finally his Ego in every act of itself is just this 
process. So the Individual is the concrete 
reality. These three stages we shall now look at 
in detail. 

I. Conception as the Generic. — Universality . 
The Generic is derived from the physical pro- 
cess, the Genus, while the Universal expresses 
the mental process in its purity. Still we shall 
employ the Generic in the latter sense also, since 
it suggests more directly the creative element in 
Conception. 

The Universal remains a very abstract term in 
spite of all we can do, so we shall try to keep it 
alive by co-ordinating with it the Generic. 

Already through the Understanding the Genus 
has been reached ; the Conception of the Genus 
is essentially the Conception of the Universal as 
the original creative act which moves forth into 
division and particularity. 

1. Primarily it is the absolute identity with 



RATIOCINATION. 483 

itself, und iff ere need, immediate; the negation of 
all otherness, and ontsideness, the simple primor- 
dial unity which involves the annullment of all 
Difference. Such is the conceptive act grasped 
in its original simplicity and oneness. 

2. Yet to be this simple unity it must cancel 
Difference ; that is, it must have Difference 
in it, though canceled; thus Difference is a 
potential element, overcome indeed or not yet 
unfolded. The Universal, therefore, must be 
grasped not merely as the simple unity with 
itself, but as the possibility, the very source, of 
all multiplicity and concreteness. It is the idea 
of the concrete world, not yet realized, but which 
is to be realized. 

3. When the Universal passes into reality, 
which is its other or negative, it is not lost, but 
it preserves itself thereby ; it goes along with 
itself in its separation from itself, and remains 
universal in all Difference and Particularity. It 
is the Creator who remains himself in his Crea- 
tion ; in fact, he realizes himself first through 
his Creation, is his own completeness therein. 
Hence this process is often represented as the 
love of the Father toward His children, since He 
relates Himself to them as to Himself, or, we 
may say, He goes over into them, makes them 
in His own image. In like manner, Natural 
Science has conceived of an original germ-cell of 
all being, wherein, however, the main fact is 



484 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

that Conception is trying to conceive Concep- 
tion. 

Undoubtedly the central thought of the Uni- 
versal is its generic, creative principle, which has 
to make the Universe. In the religious imagina- 
tion this is that principle which was in the begin- 
ning — when "the earth was without form and 
void;" it had all multiplicity in it, yet undiffer- 
enced, uncreated; it was pure identity with 
itself, in which the Universe lay unborn, ideal, 
potential, yet conceived. But its essence is to 
create ; it could not even be identical with itself, 
unless it could posit Difference, or the World, 
and therein go along with itself into reality. 

The act of Conception is creative, let it again 
be affirmed, and repeats the original act of the 
Creator. Every true Thought of yours is pri- 
marily conceptive, that is, it generates the Thing 
or Object as the original primordial Idea gener- 
ated it in the beginning. When you think truly 
(grasp the Conception of the Object), you think 
the thought of God after Him. Very true, as 
we have already found, is that utterance of Male- 
branche about "seeing all things in God;" 
higher and truer is thinking all thoughts in God. 

The whole movement of the Understanding ( to 
take another glance backward) was to reach this 
concrete Universal which is creative, the Gen- 
eric, the Genus. To be sure the Understanding 
found another kind of Universal externally by 



BATIOCINATIOK. 485 

Abstraction; certain qualities it abstracted from 
objects and united in an abstract term, say 
redness. But this act is not creative, it remains 
abstract, hence it may be called the abstract 
Universal, in contrast with the concrete Universal 
which unfolds from within and is creative. 
Upon this abstract Universal is founded the 
view of the Nominalists with their apothegm: 
Universalia sunt nomina. But the Universal is 
inherently genetic, and so generates that which 
is different from itself, namely the Different. 

II. Conception as differentiated. — Particular- 
ity, It has been already stated that the Universal 
must differentiate itself in order to be identical 
with itself ; it is the undetermined which must 
determine itself, even as identical with itself; it 
is the original which must originate, the Genus 
which must separate itself into its species. The 
Universal must become special (species), and its 
species are two : the Particular and itself as dif- 
ferent from the Particular. 

The relation of Universal and Particular is not 
that of the Whole and the Parts. These are 
simply posited alongside of one another and are 
externally related, not internally generated; if 
the Whole created its Parts, differentiating itself 
into the same, then it would be the Universal. 
The creative power of the Conception must be 
present. 

The Particular is the sphere of separation, 



486 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of the multiplicity of being, of quality. It is 
immanent in the Universal (or Generic) which 
has to move into the Particular in order to appear 
at all. Fundamentally, however, the Difference 
is dual ; the Genus of Conception divides itself 
and is twofold, or has two species and two only: 
the Particular and the Universal. But the Genus 
of Nature falls into multiplicity and has many 
species or may have; Nature, being externality, 
can only show an indefinite approach toward the 
Ego or the complete Conception, an approach by 
many stages. Yet even Nature often shows a 
tendency to bifurcate in its divisions, as Verte- 
brates and Invertebrates, Plants and Animals, 
Phaenogamous and Cryptogamous Plants, Man 
and the lower Animals, etc. 

Thus the Universal differences itself into the 
Particular, which is the world created, the realm 
of manifestation. But this Particular is at the 
same time universal, the Creator goes with him- 
self into his creation, and we call it his; though 
it be distinct from him, even the distinction is 
his. So all particularity returns to the Univer- 
sal, seeking to identify itself with its origin. 
Every particularized atom of earth seeks to 
return to its center, as the soul seeks to return 
to the Divine. 

We have already noted how the Understand- 
ing, taking up the Particular in some form, 
reaches, through Abstraction, what we called the 



B A TIO CWA TION. 487 

abstract Universal, as distinct from the true (or 
conceptive) Universal. Yet the Understanding 
even in this act of Abstraction is certainly seek- 
ing the true Universal, but with its category of 
Identity can get only the Common, can only 
generalize. On the other hand the Ego in Con- 
ception universalizes. Let us note the process. 

1. The Particular, being held against the 
Universal, reduces the latter to the Particular; 
that is, the limit which the Particular puts upon 
Universal, must make the latter also limited, 
particular. 

2. Thus we see the Particular dualized, special- 
ized, with two species. Yet both these species 
are particular, indeed constitute all particularity ; 
thus they are at bottom one which is the 
Universal. 

3. So the Particular, in asserting itself com- 
pletely, universalizes itself, passes over through 
its own inner necessity into the Universal. It 
cannot stay by itself and truly remain particular? 
it has to return to the Universal as to its creative 
form ; it shows itself as derived, not independ- 
ent, not the total, else it would not be particular. 
Such is the process of the universalization of the 
Particular. 

We may look at some examples. Suppose 
the particular act of a man to be negative, 
wrongful ; the law, which is the Universal, must 
bring it back to itself and negate it. Theft, mur- 



488 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

der, crime are punished by the State, which is 
the Universal in action. The law is that the 
deed must be returned upon the doer ; some- 
times this is a statutory law administered by 
civil authority; but in dramatic poetry, espe- 
cially in the Tragedies of Shakespeare, it is 
shown to be a principle of the Ethical Order of 
the World. 

The whole Universe, as particularized, cre- 
ated, asserts itself in every particular atom. 
This little speck of dust will seek to return to 
the Universal if separated from it; it longs to 
be with the Whole, to be the very center thereof. 
This is the law of matter, showing itself in the 
phenomenon of gravitation. 

Every Particular, therefore, must return and 
share in the Universal, its source, in order to be 
at peace and harmonious. If the Particular 
refuses to be at one with its creative principle, 
it becomes the center of discord, conflict, rebel- 
lion — a state of things which is set forth in 
many a song and story; it is indeed the grand 
theme of literature and religion. 

The Creator makes the Particular, his counter- 
part, his other, different yet one with him ; in 
fact, just this last is the great problem. Will 
the creature assert himself or the Universal? 
The Rebellion of Satan, the Fall of Man, the 
War in Heaven are huge mythical reflections of 
this primordial fact of human consciousness. 



RATIOCINATION. 489 

We may ooce more call attention to the 
distinction between generalization and uni- 
versalization. The first is the product of the 
Understanding and takes place outside of the 
Particular; the second is the act of Conception 
unfolding the movement of the Particular itself. 
The grand behest is, Universalize your deed and 
your thought, and see what becomes of them. 
Kant has applied this process to the conception 
of Duty, and makes it the foundation of his 
famous Categorical Imperative. 

Hereafter we shall find the Particular to be the 
Middle Term of the First Syllogism. We can 
now see the reason : it lies between the Universal 
and the Individual, and is the middle or media- 
tion of the two extremes. 

The Individual in Conception has arisen out 
of the process of the Particular, which is in 
the present case universal also, while being 
particular. This new Particular is not the one 
just described as the different from the Uni- 
versal, but is itself universal too; thus it is the 
Individual. 

III. Conception as Individual. — Individua- 
tion. This new Particular arrived at is not the 
former Particular, as separated, divided, or a3 
the species, but nil separation is now canceled, 
since the Particular is in itself universal. Such 
is the Individual (the word etymologically means 
the non-divided, or negation of the divided 



490 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

which is the Particular), Grasping the move- 
ment more closely, we must see that the Universal 
or the Generic not only particularizes itself 
(species), but also particularizes the Particular, 
negates its special particularity and makes it the 
Individual. The, Genus, or the generic act, not 
only brings forth the species, but through the 
latter passes into the Individual, which is the 
realized product of the whole process of Concep- 
tion. Every Individual both of Nature and 
Mind shows more or less completely, according 
to its remoteness from the Ego, just this process. 

The triangle has reality only as an individual 
triangle ; yet this Individual must have the 
Universal, or the Idea of the triangle ; also it 
has the Particular, or is a certain kind of 
triangle. The Genus or the Conception of the 
triangle differentiates itself into many species of 
triangles (scalene, isoceles, etc.) ; yet this par- 
ticularity must be overcome, and show itself as 
Universal, one, single, the Individual, which has 
in it the total process of the Conception, and 
hence is real. 

But the supreme manifestation of the Individ- 
ual is the Ego, Person, which not only has divis- 
ion and individuality within itself, but is that 
which divides and individualizes itself, and be- 
comes therein the pure conceptive process which 
grasps itself as such process. The Ego or the 
Subject is fundamentally Conception, its move- 



BATIOCINATION. 491 

ment follows the act of creation, and it identifies 
itself with the same. Conception at last con- 
ceives itself and its own process ; thus it is the 
self-knowing Ego, which conceives the object 
too, creating the same anew after its own 
process. 

Still it may be said that every individual thing 
is a reflex of this Conception. A clod as a single 
thing has limit, has separation from every other 
clod, and also has separation from its Universal, 
the Earth. Still it is always seeking just this 
Universal of itself; though it has its limit 
against the Earth, yet it is one with and through 
the same in gravitation. 

The Universe (Universal) is made up of Indi- 
viduals; every real object will show in some 
phase the process of Conception — Universal, 
Particular, Individual. Yet, these three do not 
really exist in separation, they are one and 
belong in one process; still they could not be 
one and a process, unless they were three. We 
have seen that the most external individual thing 
of Nature, a clod, a stone, a speck of dust, has 
this threefold process, though in the most 
external way. Life shows it in a much higher 
form; Ego, Spirit, God reveal it in the highest. 

But the Ego as Individual is not only the pro- 
cess of Conception, but is in that process as well ; 
whereof let us note the stages. 

1. We have just seen how the Particular 



492 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

returns of itself to the Universal, and so gets 
negated as simple, separated Particular against 
other Particulars, thereby becoming Individual. 
That is, the Individual has in it the total process 
of Conception as immediate, internal, and is thus 
asserting itself — Individuality, which is the fact 
that the Individual is universal. 

The same thing may be stated in the form of 
the movement of the Negative. The Universal 
negates the Particular, which is the limited or 
negative ; thus the Universal negates the nega- 
tive, and brings forth the positive, the real, here 
the Individual, which therein manifests " pure 
negativity," which term, as already repeatedly 
noted, designates the innermost essence of the 
Ego. 

2. The Individual, going through the process 
of Conception, is not only universal, but is also 
particular, wherewith we come to a new kind of 
particularity, which is the particularity of the 
Individual ; this we may name in a general way 
Particularism. The Individual we have seen 
to be in himself the complete process of Concep- 
tion; thus he (or it) is one total self-including 
Individual against other ones of the same kind. 
So we behold a realm of mutually excluding In- 
dividuals, each in his own inner fortress, a par- 
ticular Individual versus other Particulars of the 
species. Manifestly this is the sphere of Differ- 
ence, Separation, specially Particularism. 



RATIOCINATION. 493' 

The manifestations of Particularism assume 
many forms, partly good, often bad — selfish- 
ness, partyism, denominationalism, and many 
other isms, even nationalism vs. nationality, 
which may be compared with individualism vs. 
individuality. 

But Particularism too is subject to the process, 
specially to the process of the negative, it being 
limited and negative. It grinds itself to pieces 
in the mill of its own conflicting Individuals, till 
they come to Recognition, each recognizing the 
other to be itself and one with itself in essence. 

3. The Individual, still going through the 
process of Conception, finally posits himself as 
Individual ; he is what the other is, and the 
other is what he is; he is now truly, concretely 
Universal. Or, the Individual now conceives 
himself as Conception; he has become the Con- 
ception of the Conception ; he is the Generic 
generating himself as Generic ; he recognizes 
himself as Universal. The Individual in the 
first stage above was the simple immediate 
process of Conception, which has now unfolded 
into the conceptive process seizing itself as 
process. 

Conception has herein gone through its entire 
movement, as Universal, Particular, Individual, 
and the Individual has not only Conception, but 
has conceived of itself as Conception. This 
self-return is the final act of Conception as 



494 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

internal ; it knows itself to be universal and 
utters itself as such. That is, the Individual 
now externalizes its own Conception, which new 
act is the act of Judgment. The Individual as 
Conception utters Judgment of itself, whose 
content must be just the thought to which we 
have attained, namely, the Individual is the 
Universal (or Generic) ; its conceptive process 
is the creative principle underlying all things. 
No human being can utter a Judgment without 
this pre-supposition. 

The outcome of Conception is, therefore, that 
it has brought forth an Individual who utters 
himself to be universal, which is truly the uni- 
versal Judgment, Judgment of himself by him- 
self. 1 am a man; such is the primordial Judg- 
ment of the individual Ego concerning itself ; it 
(the Individual) is the Generic (the genus, 
homo). Yet this genus must be dualized into 
its species, made up of the two sexes (man 
and woman) before the individual of the species 
(either man or woman) can be conceived and 
brought forth ; the woman is homo or the Gene- 
ric as well as the man. Thus in the present case 
the individual is mediated or united in the pro- 
cess of the genus through the species (here the 
sexual pair or the family). 

It will be again interesting to note that every 
Roman individual born into the social order, bore 
this triple process in his name. He was Publius 



RATIOCINATION. 495 

(individual) Cornelius (genus, or the Cornelian 
gens) Scipio (the specific family of the genus). 
The individual in Rome did not really exist till his 
complete process was designated. Also the first 
two names (Publius Cornelius) are an implied 
Judgment, namely the Individual is the Generic. 
Our names are different, the Individual and the 
Family appear in them, the genus has dropped 
out. 

Historical. The use of the term Conception in 
the preceding exposition differs from that cur- 
rent in the psychology of to-day. The Concept 
is said to be obtained from Abstraction, Compa- 
rison, and Generalization; thus the abstract 
term is found through an external process of 
division and combination, whereby things similar 
are brought into a general whole, which is the 
Concept. The reader will note that all this is 
but a phase of that which we have called the 
Understanding. 

The foregoing account has put stress upon the 
genetic element of Conception. Such meaning 
is not alien to English usage; the reader must 
have often seen (we hope) the biblical phrase: 
she conceived and bare a son. What kind of 
Conception is this? The physical genetic pro- 
cess, not the mental ; yet the one is derived from 
the other by analogy ; so we may freshen up the 
usage and the conception. 

Throughout all the literature of Formal Logic, 



496 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

we find much employment of the terms, Uni- 
versal, Particular, Individual. They have un- 
questionably a very important formal side, but 
a more important psychological side. Here, if 
anywhere in the world -of Thought, there is need 
of the Psychosis, the unifying principle of the 
Ego, since division, analysis, abstract definition 
have run riot, sometimes with protest, but gen- 
erally without restraint. The result is, Logic 
has been discredited through its empty formalism. 
It is manifest that Logic cannot be redeemed 
except by restoring its psychological, or rather 
psychical side. Many have seen this, and some 
have attempted the task. Of these attempts the 
best in our opinion is that of the philosopher 
Hegel (in the third part of his larger Logic 
under Begriff), to whom we owe much in the 
preceding exposition. Still even in the case of 
Hegel we shall have to transcend limitations. 
He obscures his treatment of the subject by for- 
cing it to be logical in name, whereas it is mani- 

DO * 

f estly psychological in fact ; Hegel himself says 
his Begrijf is Ego, Spirit, Self-consciousness (p. 
13), and also intimates that the considering it to 
be such " would make the comprehension of it 
easier." But he does not follow out his own 
suggestion, so that his exposition seems to be a 
tissue of the most unreal abstractions hanging in 
the air like fine-spun gossamers. Yet they per- 
tain to the most concrete thing in the Universe, 



RATIOCINATION. 497 

namely the Ego. Doubtless many a reader will 
deem our own treatment as sufficiently abstract ; 
still we are incessantly holding before him the 
reality of it all, which is the process of the Ego, 
of which he has in himself an ever-present and im- 
portant example. Hegel was evidently too anxious 
not to get his philosophy mixed up with Fichte's 
Ego, or the principle of subjective idealism, 
so that he comes near to throwing the baby out 
with the bath (das Kind mit dem Bade aussch 
uetten). 

Still further, the word Begriff in German 
seems to be even more perverted and ambiguous 
than is the English word Conception. To such 
difficulties may be added special tangles in 
Hegel's expression, and, as it seems to us, ob- 
scurities of thought, though these have a tend- 
ency to sink out of sight, when the sweep of the 
whole begins to get visible. Partially true, yet 
not altogether so, is the statement, that, in order 
to understand Hegel, you must know beforehand 
what he means. This, however, is only saying 
that the reader must bring along his appercep- 
tive stuff, else he will not apperceive Hegel or 
any philosopher. 

Still we strongly recommeud the student who 
wishes to grasp the unfolding of this most im- 
portant phase of the psychological process, to 
grapple with the exposition of Hegel above 
cited. If the student's endeavor be honest, not 

32 



498 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

prejudiced beforehand, nor indolent, he will 
bring much away with him, though much will 
probably remain behind (such at least is our 
case). Still we think that we see far enough 
to see an inherent defect in HegePs treatment of 
the subject, which defect is summed up in the 
statement: he lacks the Psychosis. He leaves 
the nexus with the process of the Ego obscure, 
he does not bring into the foreground the creat- 
ivity of his Begriff (Conception), he unfolds 
with the keenest dialectic his Pure Thought, but 
does not (for us at least) connect it with the 
reality. Doubtless he had all these matters in 
his mind, but they remain implicit in his expo- 
sition. Hegel must, therefore, be developed 
through himself out of himself. 



II. Judgment. 

In the sphere of Ratiocination, Judgment is 
the second stage, as Ratiocination is the second 
stage in the process of Thought. The divisive 
principle dominates in both stages, yet in different 
ways. We saw thought as the Genus separate 
itself within itself and become species and in- 
dividuals, and thus enter the sphere of Ratioci- 
nation. Then we saw Conception from its 
immediate unity unfold into Difference, which 
became the Universal on one side, and the In- 



BATIOCINATION. 499 

dividual on the other, these two being the 
essential terms of Judgment. 

Let us mark more closely this last transi- 
tion. In Conception the Generic (or the Uni- 
versal) unfolded into the Individual; the reality 
of the Generic is the Individual, which is thus 
itself the Generic. The Generic is not the ab- 
stract Universal without its realization in the 
Individual, which is, accordingly, the Generic 
realized and active. Thus the Individual in 
Conception is derived from the Generic, but 
therein also returns to the Generic, or is the 
Generic. Such is the process: the Individual 
being posited by the Generic, now turns back, as 
it were, and posits the Generic as distinct. This 
is the act of Judgment. 

The fundamental utterance of the Judgment 
is, therefore, the Individual is generic; being 
sprung of the Genus, the Individual has the 
character of the same and is generic, is creative, 
is the Genus. That which the Individual is in 
his deepest nature is the self-creative; in Con- 
ception just that fact was the implicit one, 
which there unfolded itself within itself (sub- 
jectively); but in Judgment the same fact is 
made explicit, is uttered, is posited in the world. 
That is, Judgment is the Individual declaring 
himself to be self-creative as his fundamental 
attribute. For the Individual being a Generic, 
arising from a Generic and returning to a Gen- 



500 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

eric, must uttei himself as such, outer himself, 
and become real. 

We may say that the Individual is born in an 
act of Judgment ; in Conception he is yet un- 
born, a possibility, an abstract unrealized Gen- 
eric. In Judgment the separation takes place 
which makes him an Individual existent, he is 
posited in the world. Not merely the individ- 
ual body, but the individual Ego is now born ; 
its division within itself and its self-identification 
in the act of self-consciousness is the funda- 
mental Judgment, or the Ego as a Judgment. 
Indeed the Ego is always in the process of being 
born ; you are being born in Judgment every day. 

The individual man, being born, has sex upon 
him, is generic through the act of nature. The 
individual word or name, being born, has also 
sex upon it ; that is, language is sexed, the 
names of things in most tongues have gender, and 
therein manifest themselves as the generic or 
universal. The word springs truly from an act 
of Conception, and is the individual which shows, 
often in its linguistic f orm,its gender or its generic 
character. There is a tendency in the English 
tongue to get rid of sex, thus obscuring what 
may be called the creative element in the word. 
The term individual (the reader may have 
noticed) we use with a he, she and it; this 
important word is of all genders, yet of none 
distinctively. But originally every single name 



BA TIO CINA TION. 501 

of person or thing is sexed in accord with the 
process of Conception. 

The Individual having uttered itself (or him- 
self or herself) as generic, having posited itself 
as distinct from the previous Individual of Con- 
ception, which was simply a result, must have 
a new expression of its new Self. For it is 
now the self-producing; also the Generic must 
have a new term for its new relation to the 
Individual, since it now manifests the innermost 
essence of the Individual, whereas previously in 
Conception it unfolded the Individual. So 
Judgment has its own terms : the Individual is 
Subject and the Generic is Predicate. 

Subject and Predicate, therefore, are the Con- 
ception uttered, the unborn Thought is born in 
Subject and Predicate, which twofoldness is 
simply Thought itself differentiated. I say, the 
conceived Thought has to propel itself into 
a Judgment, as the infant has to separate itself 
from its mother and come into the world. 
Thus we see that Conception is realized in 
Judgment; that which is immediate, implicit, 
potential, becomes real, explicit, differenced in 
Subject and Predicate. Judgment is the sever- 
ing of the umbilical cord in the Thought-bear- 
ing process ; the analogy is as old as Socrates, 
who deemed himself an obstetrician of the Ego, 
and therein compared himself to his mother, 
who was a midwife. 



502 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Still further this utterance of Conception in 
Judgment employs the word, the sign which has 
just this meaning — namely to be the utterance 
of Conception in Subject and Predicate. All 
Thought must, accordingly, realize itself in the 
word, in language. Thought is unborn till it 
incarnates itself in Subject and Predicate. Here 
too Grammar gets organized ; there are words, 
articulate sounds with meaning in them, given 
by a stage of the Imagination ; but the organiza- 
tion of language (which is Grammar) is based 
upon Subject and Predicate. For Thought has 
now uttered itself and created its forms of utter- 
ance ; it can be found by Thought in these 
forms. 

In Subject and Predicate, Difference lies 
posited ; they express just the differentiation of 
Thought intp its two opposite elements — the 
Individual and the Generic, or Subject and Predi- 
cate. Yet there is also Identity here, a connec- 
tion expressed in the Copula. The Subject 
(subjection) is that which is put under some- 
thing; the Predicate is affirmed of something. 
Both are thus subordinated; really each sub- 
sumes the other in their common process, and 
therein are alike ; the Subject is the Predicate, 
both are implicitly identical, hence the Copula 
utters identity. Still the explicit fact of Judg- 
ment is the separation, the difference in it. 

This identity of Subject and Predicate is not, 



HATIOCWATION. 503 

therefore, expressly mediated in Judgment, but 
is implicit, and is to unfold into an explicit form. 
The two extremes, Subject and Predicate, in 
their movement will develop a mean; the Copula 
will evolve itself out of a mere connecting link 
into a mediating term, on a par with the other 
two terms. This will give the Syllogism in 
Reasoning. 

The process of Judgment is, therefore, through 
Difference toward Unity, which is finally uttered 
in the middle term of the Syllogism. The Dif- 
ference of the two-fold in Subject and Predicate 
is the explicit phase of Judgment while the 
Identity is as yet in germ, but is unfolding. 
More and more will Subject and Predicate de- 
monstrate their unity. Of this movement we 
shall note three stages, which are the Stages of 
the Ego: immediate (undivided); conditional 
(divided); definitive (integrated). 

In fact the most fundamental Judgment of all, 
the Judgment of Judgments, is Ego is Ego. Here 
is the separation into Subject and Predicate, also 
the Identity is affirmed. The primitive Ego of 
Conception is not yet real, but only conceived; 
the Ego must dirempt itself into subject and 
object, before it can conceive itself as itself, and 
be the real Ego. This has Difference within it- 
self, yet also affirms Identity. It is a Judgment, 
and utters itself in Subject and Predicate, for 
the Predicate affirms objectivity of the Subject, 



504 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

makes it real. Unless the Ego were the other of 
itself and still one with itself in the other, it 
would never be a Judgment, nor be able to con- 
struct a proposition. Subject-Object utters itself 
in Subject-Predicate, and is Judgment. 

Popular speech often takes Identity to express 
Difference, for instance: Woman is woman; in 
which the distinctive meaning is thrown into the 
intonation or gesture. Repetition has the same 
effect : There are teachers and teachers ; one is 
very different from the other. Thus the Ego 
employs its own fundamental Judgment : Ego is 
Ego, putting Difference into Identity by its own 
immediate psychical act. 

The fundamental form, however, in all Judg- 
ments is contained in the statement : The Individ- 
ual is the Generic (or Universal). Every Judg- 
ment is an act of recreating the object and uttering 
the same. When I say, the window-pane is 
transparent, I, this self-conscious Individual, 
recreate the thought of the window-pane and 
utter it in a Judgment. Already in Conception 
I might conceive the thought of the window-pane, 
or the process of the Ego in creating the window- 
pane; in Judgment, however, I, this Individual, 
am myself Judgment, am the Generic, and 
must utter myself as generic, creative. Hence 
it comes that 1, being the Individual which is 
generic, and knowing myself as such, can declare 
that the Individual is the Generic throughout the 



RATIOCINATION. 505 

universe. Hence it comes too, that I can say that 
the window-pane, which is an individual object, is 
transparent, for transparency is its generic prin- 
ciple, or that which makes it a window-pane. In 
making such a judgment, I am affirming myself 
as the basis of every Judgment; I am the self- 
knowing, self-creative principle, the Generic ; 
here I am the Judgment creating Judgments. 
Unless I were such, I could not even say or think 
that yonder window-pane is transparent; unles- 
I grasped myself as the individual which is gen- 
eric, I would have no universal Form of Judg- 
ment, and could express no special judgment ; 1 
could not make the simplest proposition. 

But as the case stands, the Individual as self- 
conscious Ego can grasp every individual thing 
in existence, and judge the same, that is, sub- 
sume the same under its own Form, under itself; 
then it can express such formulation in judgment. 
Herewith rises the present stage of the Ego ; 
man must go forth and judge the world, subor- 
dinating it to his Form ; he must create anew 
the entire realm of individual things, transform- 
ing them into Judgments. The movement of 
this new fact we shall here outline. 

I. Immediate, Such a Judgment simply 
affirms existence ; both terms are terms of being, 
direct, immediate. The rose is red; Subject 
and Predicate are held asunder as distinct entities, 
yet united by the Copula which expresses being. 



506 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The Ego in this Judgment declares the world as 
immediately existent (as in Sense-perception), 
which is indeed the first Predicate that can be 
applied to the individual object, inasmuch as the 
Ego itself is, first of all, immediate. 

Yet the immediate Judgment is in the process 
of the Ego, and will of necessity show the same; 
it soon finds that it has to be mediated, indeed 
has already been mediated. The Ego will bring 
its own divisive element into the sphere of Judg- 
ment, which will therein show separation within 
itself. 

II. Conditional, Such a Judgment declares in 
some form that the immediately existent depends 
on something else, is not immediate. If this is 
so, that is so; the second proposition depends on 
the first. In this way dualism enters the Judg- 
ment, which becomes thereby the utterance of 
doubt, questioning, probability, uncertainty, 
contingency. 

Thus the Ego in Judgment separates itself from 
the immediate world, questions it, doubts it, and 
finally declares that something lies behind it, on 
which in one way or other it depends. It is the 
determined, which has a determining cause or 
essence, whereby it is mediated. Therein the 
Immediate Judgment has moved through the 
Conditional Judgment and has become a medi- 
ated Judgment, which is the following : — 

III. Definitive. Such a judgment is the Defi- 



RATIOCINATION. 507 

nition as Judgment. Man is rational; there is 
no condition in this Judgment, man as man is 
nothing else. It is an immediate Judgment, yet 
it has been mediated through the Conditional 
Judgment which has been negated, overcome, in 
order to bring it forth. Dualism, doubt, con- 
tingency, negation are all in it, yet as annulled. 
It is the highest form of Judgment, having, in it 
the complete process of the Ego as a Judgment, 
and being the third stage of this process. When 
I utter the definition of an object as a Judg- 
ment, I put into it the threefold movement of 
the Ego. 

Yet not explicitly, for I have not the three sets 
of terms for such an utterance. These, however, 
are next to be unfolded, forming the Syllogism, 
whose process is Reasoning. That is, the implicit 
Judgment is to be made explicit. 



III. Reasoning — The Syllogism. 

As the outcome of the preceding stage, we 
have a world of Judgments; all things are 
destined to be brought under that form of the 
Ego and to be uttered. 

Now each Judgment is single, stands by itself, 
is particular; the result is, a vast particularity 
of Judgments, separate, struggling, discordant. 
The strife of Judgments, which are uttered by 
every human being from his own factory, fills the 



508 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

earth with noise, conflict, even war. Such is 
the realm which we may call the particularism of 
the Judgment, a realm of multiplicity, division, 
finitude. 

Now begins the tendency (in accord with the 
nature of the Ego) to unify this multiplicity, to 
overcome this particularism, to mediate this con- 
flict, of Judgments. Such is, in general, the 
mediatorial act of Reasoning ; between two dif- 
ferent propositions it seeks to find the middle 
term ; between tvvo hostile Judgments it looks 
for the reconciling word. Reasoning searches 
for, finds, and utters the intermediate Judgment 
which brings together two extreme Judgments. 
This, formally expressed, gives the Syllogism. 

We have already noted the Judgment, man is 
rational; a second distinct Judgment would be, 
John is a man. It is the simple act of Reason- 
ing which finds the middle term man in these 
two distinct propositions, and unites them in a 
third called the conclusion : John is rational. 
An instance of the Syllogism can be seen in these 
three propositions expressed in the given order. 

Now all these propositions, and all possible 
propositions, or Judgments, have the one funda- 
mental form, the individual is generic. But the 
individual Ego makes many particular Judg- 
ments, and there are many individual Egos always 
in the same business; hence that realm which we 
designated as the particularism of the Judgment. 



EA TIO CIN A TIOJST. 509 

Still, in all this multiplicity and diversity of 
Judgments, there is a unity, a single form and 
a single activity, which we have just stated. 
Reasoning seeks to bring out this unity of Judg- 
ments in a Judgment, to externalize this implicit 
element which lurks in Judgment. 

It is manifest that Reasoning is mediation of 
the difference of Judgment ; still this mediation 
is external, imperfect, being through a Judgment 
which also has difference in itself by its very 
nature. But it will have its process too, which 
will correspond to that of the Judgment. Hence 
the Syllogism will show the following stages: — 

I. The Immediate Syllogism. 

II. The Conditional Syllogism. 

III. The Definitive Syllogism. 

The two premises of the Syllogism, its two 
basic Judgments, are picked up, assumed, not 
proven, hence are not mediated in themselves, 
though they mediate the Conclusion. Therefore 
they contradict the very nature of the Syllogism, 
which has for its object to mediate, to prove. 
On account of this difficulty, the Syllogism will 
try to prove itself by itself, will try to prove its 
own premises, but will break down in the trial, 
and reveal its limitation. The Syllogism is not 
self-proving, not self-determining, and therefore 
cannot adequately express the movement of the 
Ego. 

Hence the Syllogism is finite, and goes to 



510 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

pieces by its own inherent contradiction of itself. 
It has to assume its major term, or its summum 
genus; but whence did this come? The Syllo- 
gism cannot tell, and yet it hangs everything on 
this outside assumption. Ultimately the sum- 
mum genus has to generate itself, it must be 
generic, self-creative, but all this clearly lies 
outside of the domain of the Syllogism. 

At this point we begin to make the transition 
into the following sphere, that of Reason, which 
has returned to the starting principle of Ratiocin- 
ation, namely the Genus, given to it by the Under- 
standing. Ratiocination has unfolded from the 
Genus to the Summum Genus, beyond which it 
cannot reach ; it has formulated Thought, but 
Thought, being formulated, iusists upon break- 
ing through the Form and asserting itself as the 
Form-maker; it has developed the " Laws of 
Thought," but again Thought insists upon mak- 
ing the Law as well as obeying it, being Law- 
giver as well as subject to Law. Thought as 
Reason is the Summum Genus, or the Genus 
which creates itself and its own terms; it is not 
only the Syllogism, but the Syllogizer making 
the Syllogism. 

Ratiocination is essentially the Logic of Aris- 
totle in its varied transformations. We find in 
logical treatises, amid other material more or less 
adventitious, these fundamental divisions: Con- 
ception, Judgment, Reasoning. Such is the 



BATIOGINATION. 511 

heart of the ordinary Logic. But it is grasped 
formally, that is, externally ; this is, however, but 
one side of it ; the very name indicates the limit- 
ation : Formal Logic. Its treatment leaves out 
the inner process, presenting mainly the divisions 
and the external definitions ; the genetic move- 
ment of Conception vanishes in the fixed form. 
Complaint has always been loud that Logic is 
empty, meaningless, a dead cabinet of hollow 
shapes. Only too true ; it lacks the Psychosis, 
which must be supplied to give it life and unity. 
Such is the vital help which our science can give 
to Logic. 

But these logical Forms are not to be thrown 
away, they are of supreme interest, and have 
been inwoven into the very fibre of Human Cul- 
ture. Indeed they are just the Forms of the 
Spirit, yet in separation from its reality, from 
its process. It was the great idea of Aristotle 
to find these Forms and to order them out of the 
vast mass of speech. Plato had indeed the Con- 
ception and the Genus, Aristotle gave the Judg- 
ment and the Syllogism, and so completed 
essentially the formulation. Later logicians 
have varied the matter and added a good deal, 
still the old substructure remains. 

We have not unfolded the Forms of Judgment 
and Syllogism, as that would carry us too far 
into the field of Logic proper, though it would 
be an enticing theme to rehabilitate those Forms, 



512 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS, 

and bring back to them their lost soul by means 
of the Psychosis. The student may be able to 
work out the problem for himself. 

At the passage out of Eepresentation we noted 
that the Word, the highest product of that 
sphere, called forth Thought, though it was not 
Thought. In like manner, the Syllogism, the 
highest product of Ratiocination, calls forth 
Reason, provokes it, demands it, though it is not 
Reason. Thither, accordingly, we must now 
pass. 



SECTION TRIED. — BE AS ON. 

The Ego in Reason is still Thought, but 
Thought in its highest stage. Reason is 
Thought recognizing Thought as the creative 
principle of the Universe. Reason is Concep- 
tion, not as simply unfolding into its own pro- 
cess, but Conception knowing Conception as the 
absolute process. Reason, too, is a Syllogism, 
not, however, as a mere external syllogistic 
form, but as the Syllogism which syllogizes, 
which creates the Syllogism out of itself, and is 
thus the genetic syllogistic act. 

The formal Syllogism, having to take its 
premises from the outside, and being un- 
able to prove them in itself, breaks down 
through its own inner contradiction, inasmuch 
as the Syllogism was just that which in- 
sisted by its very principle upon demon- 

33 (513) 



514 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

stration. But it has shown that in the end 
it cannot demonstrate, it does not prove the main 
thing to be proven; it is hardly more than a 
hopper which has to have the grain given to it in 
order to grind out any flour. The total process, 
self-determination, it cannot unfold nor image. 
It falls back upon the summum genus, which is 
really the absolute creative principle within 
itself, the generic principle or primal conception 
not simply as subjective but as objective also ; 
the summum genus is truly that genus whose 
primordial differentiation is Subject and Object, 
or Ego and the World. So far beyond itself has 
the Sj'llogism forced us. 

Ratiocination showed Reason externalized, 
with the moments of its process fallen asunder, 
yet seeking to come together through a mean 
of some kind. The mediation,- however, was 
external, outside the thing itself. But Reason 
is the self-mediated, is the total Syllogism within 
itself, whose major term is the summum genus 9 
that greatest term which creates its own terms. 
Ratiocination has discovered that which ratioci- 
nates, the Syllogism that which syllogizes, 
Reasoning has found Reason. Underneath the 
ratiocinative process was the creative principle 
making it, yet separate from it; the Syllogism 
has taken up into itself the syllogizer, and both 
have become one act.' The Ego, having recog- 
nized itself as the maker of the Syllogism, whose 



MEASON. 515 

principle is mediation, has found its own com- 
plete process. 

Thought has, accordingly, unfolded into Rea- 
son, which is Thought self-conscious, knowing 
itself as the creative element in the object. To 
take a former example, when I simply think (or 
conceive) the window, I enter immediately into 
the purpose and meaning of the mind that made 
it; I grasp the genetic act thereof and make it 
mine. But the Ego in Eeason not only thinks 
the window immediately in grasping simply its 
creative process, but thinks itself as the thought 
of the window ; Thought knows Thought as the 
creative process of the object. 

To the rational man the world is rational, and 
he identifies it with his Reason; that is, he thinks 
it as a Thought. If he shows that he has wholly 
lost the power of grasping the world about him 
as Thought, he has lost his Reason. He may 
show that he does not possess the thought of a 
window as already given ; he may nail a board 
over the window of the school house and shut 
out its light. We say at once that his own light is 
shut out, he is not rational, he no longer compre- 
hends the thought of a window, but destroys the 
same. Man has to see, up to a certain point, the 
rational order about him, and adjust himself to 
it through recognition ; otherwise he has to be 
put out of the rational world into a mad-house. 
Let him use any common object, say this chair, 



516 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

in an irrational way, let him sit on it upside 
down in earnest, he will seem insane. 

Eeason is truly Thought which knows itself as 
all existence ; it is Thought recognizing the Uni- 
verse as Thought. It seizes the totality, being 
itself the totality ; it is Person, Subject, Ego, 
which is individual, yet not the all-exclusive, but 
the all-inclusive individual which is universal 
recognition, having its own universal Self as the 
object to itself. 

From a somewhat different standpoint we may 
look at Eeason : it will never rest satisfied with 
the partial and the particular, but carries the 
same at once up to the total and the universal; 
it will not take the link without the chain ; hav- 
ing a segment it completes the circle. It is the 
supreme activity of Intellect, which transeends 
all limitation, yet posits the same as its own; it 
is truly the eternal process of the Spirit and of 
the World, which through it become one order 
and harmony. From the related, Eeason unfolds 
the self-related, from the determined, the self- 
determined, from dependent being the independ- 
ent. It is free Thought which has itself as its 
own content. 

With such designations the student will have 
to grapple, though they be somewhat vague and 
intangible at the start. They must be re-thought, 
or rather re-created by him; he must go through 
the creative process of Thought himself in 



REASON. 517 

thinking, above all in thinking Thought. Let 
him not follow indolence or bad advice, and dis- 
miss the whole as profitless subtlety or perchance 
as dangerous sophistry; even if it be a devil, let 
him conquer it, and not run off. So much by 
way of exhortation, needful in these days, when 
impatience with and neglect of pure Thought 
seem to be obscuring the speculative nature of 
man. 

All Thought, indeed, knows the object as 
itself; [but at first such knowledge is implicit, 
is unconscious, we may say ; that is, Thought at 
the start seeks unconsciously to identify the 
object with itself. In the Understanding, the 
Ego as Thought takes its own identity, and pro- 
ceeds to reduce the world to that in some form ; 
through abstraction, division, generalization, 
classification, it brings together what is separate 
and scattered into a unity. But this unity is 
external and the act of bringing together is 
external, is not immanent in the matter so 
brought into unity. In Ratiocination the Ego 
proceeds to master the external element, by tak- 
ing it up, and positing it and elaborating it fully ; 
Ratiocination works over within itself the differ- 
ent in all its forms, seeking to mediate the same 
with itself. But Ratiocinaion, as well as the 
Understanding, shows itself inadequate to give 
the complete inner process of the Ego, being 
rather the outer, formal, finite movement there- 



518 PSYCHOLOGY AUD THE PSYCHOSIS. 

of, in which at last the Syllogism both falls 
asunder within itself and lies outside its own 
creative act. But when the syllogizer syllogizes 
himself, the Syllogism being he and he being the 
Syllogism, we have entered a new sphere. 

Thought rises to Reason when it recognizes its 
own process to be the process of the object. 
The total Conception of the Ego sees the total 
Conception of the World, and identifies the two 
sides. This identification of the double process 
is now just the process, through which the Ego 
as Eeason is next to pass. Here we reach the 
standpoint of speculation or philosophic vision: 
Creative Thought seeing Thought creative is the 
speculative act of the Ego. The* final and most 
perfect bond between man and the universe is 
the speculative, veritably their true and lasting 
reconciliation. 

The movement of Reason is, accordingly, the 
movement of this speculative bond or mean, 
which is to connect the two processes of Subject 
and Object. This speculative bond or middle 
term is itself to unfold into the complete process, 
which is to mediate between the two extreme 
processes already indicated. The movement of 
the Ego in Reason, as it unfolds into the third or 
mediatorial process, which makes the final identi- 
fication between itself and the universe, passes 
through the following stages : — 

I. Intuition. 



BEASON. 519 

II. The Dialectic. 

III. The Psychosis. 

Before proceeding to details, we shall throw 
out some hints concerning these activities in 
advance. There is, first, the intuitive act of 
Reason, in which the speculative bond is not yet 
explicit, in which the Ego grasps the object im- 
mediately, and identifies the same with its 
rational Self, without conscious division; the 
process is implicit on either side, the intuitive 
Ego is not differentiated within itself, nor is the 
intuited object ; still less is there developed as 
yet any mediatorial process ; the two sides are 
identified immediately in speculative vision. 
But next, in the dialectical act of Reason this 
implicit paradisaical unity between the Ego and 
the All is broken up, the negative (or the Devil) 
enters, the struggle between finite and infinite 
opens, which is really the work of the Ego insist- 
ing upon being born into the world and conquer- 
ing the same even in a state of opposition. The 
result of the dialectical movement is the mastery 
of the Negative speculatively ; both sides, sub- 
ject and object, show themselves to be processes, 
and the Negative annuls itself into the Positive 
in both. Hence both are identified as one by 
the Ego, which identification of the two 
is the third act in the process of Reason, 
which we call the Psychosis. In the Psychosis 
the Ego makes its final identification between 



520 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Subject and Object, or between itself and the 
Universe ; it becomes aware of itself as the 
grand mean ( the true speculative bond ) between 
two processes, and this mean is itself a process, 
or rather the process of all processes. 

I. Intuition. 

The mind or total Ego now sees the Totality, 
sees it immediately. Such is the fundamental 
fact of Intuition, which, however, does not ex- 
clude all mediation, but only the ultimate 
mediatorial process. We drop back to the stage 
of Perception and grasp the object ; yet this is 
not the object of Sense, but the object of 
Thought. Intuition is, therefore, the union of 
perceiving and thinking ; though it takes the 
form of Perception, it has the content of uni- 
versal Thought ; it is the supreme Sense which 
looks directly upon the Totality. 

Manifestly the first characteristic of Intuition 
is immediacy. Just as Sense-perception was an 
immediate seeing of the particular sensuous 
object, so Intuition is the immediate seeing of 
the Universal, the Spiritual, the Perfect. It 
does not pass through the process of Reasoning 
for its result, at least not explicitly ; for Reason- 
ing cannot give that which Intuition sees. In the 
process of Reasoning, the highest, which is the 
summum genus, has to be given ; whence did it 



REASON. 521 

come? Reason (not Reasoning) alone can tell, 
of which Intuition is one form of activity. God, 
the True, the Beautiful, the Good, the Universe, 
the Ego, cannot be proven by a Syllogism; they 
are indeed the presupposition, or rather the 
origin of the syllogistic process. 

Still there is much mediation implicit in In- 
tuition. It has the entire movement of the Ego 
back of it, from Sense-perception on, and many 
mental acts may be analyzed out of it, perhaps 
all. But just this analysis is not Intuition, in- 
deed destroys it as Intuition, dividing its uncon- 
scious unity of vision, and making it something 
else. Intuition is a process, but is not conscious 
of its process ; it is an outburst, a spontaneous 
unpremeditated cast of the glance into absolute 
Truth. The Ego, being self-conscious and 
separative, can recognize it, but it cannot ade- 
quately recognize itself. 

But while Intuition is the immediate act, what 
it beholds is really the self-mediated, the self- 
related, the great Totality. The Universal must 
be self-related ; if it were related to any thing 
else beside itself, it would not be universal. In 
like manner the Universal or the Totality must 
be self-mediated; if it were through another and 
not through itself, it would not be the Totality; 
it is immediate, yet it is also mediated, and 
mediated through itself. Here, then, we can 
observe the limit of Intuition in general; it may 



522 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

seize the Universal, the Totality, God, the 
World, not as self-mediated, but as immediate. 
It leaves out to a greater or less extent, the 
difference, the determinateness, the process ; in 
general, it does not include the most important 
fact of mediation, at least the true value thereof. 
Intuition, therefore, as immediate vision, sees 
what is really self-mediated, but does not see it 
as self-mediated fundamentally. Thus Intuition 
cannot adequately reach Thought in the final 
process of Reason; Intuition, though it may 
deal with the Negative, at last throws the same 
outside of itself and so never attains the complete 
mastery thereof. 

What is the result? Intuition, as a phase or 
activity of the Ego, must unfold out of itself in 
its immediacy and pass over into a mediated 
form of the Reason. The Ego, finding its limit, 
transcends the same; being the self-mediated or 
the self-determined, the Ego must finally grasp 
the object or the Totality as self-determined, and 
show the process thereof, which is essentially its 
own. This will be truly the process of the Univer- 
sal, which is indeed the universal Process or the 
Universal mediating itself. Such is the outlook 
over Intuition, it moves of itself into the dialect- 
ical form of Reason, which is the second stage of 
Reason, whose positive characteristic we shall 
find to be the mastery of the Negative. 

But before we leave Intuition, we must note 



REASON. 523 

its development, which will pass through three 
stages, 

I. The Intuition of the Objective World ; the 
immediate seeing of the process in Nature, which 
is itself the external and immediate. 

II. The Intuition of the Subjective World, in 
which the Ego sees the Ego organizing itself in 
all its activities and making a science of itself. 

III. The Intuition of the Universe, or of the 
Divine Order of the World, in which the Ego 
beholds the Universal Ego and its Forms 

I. Intuition of the Objective World. The 
Ego at first goes forth and beholds the process of 
the object immediately, though the unconscious 
implication here is that the Ego itself is this 
process. It turns instinctively to the thing and 
seeks to fathom that, to get the meaning, the 
process thereof; it strives for an immediate 
insight into the object, which is of various grades. 

The intuiting Ego, looking out upon the 
reality does not simply regard the object in 
its sensuous limits, but connects it with its 
environment, and elevates it into a totality, 
which is its ideal counterpart. I behold 
the window, I think it and understand it, even 
reason about it; still when I fully intuit the win- 
dow, I do something more ; I have to connect it 
with the room which it ventilates and lights, with 
the house of which the room is apart, perchance 
of the street on which the house stands in rela- 



524 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

tion to other houses. Indeed with whatever 
object I have to do, I must put it into its rational 
order, which I have to grasp by Intuition at last, 
however much I may study. This is the seizing 
of relations which are near the object — relative 
Intuition. 

Higher is that Intuition which sees the com- 
pleted cycle or cycles in nature, or in life, or in 
history. The first need of man is to grasp the 
cycle of the day, then of the seasons; the water 
flowing down the river must return to the foun- 
tain head; even the migrating birds move in 
cycles, going and returning. Intuition grasps this 
necessity of nature, sees it as law, and as its own 
law too. Experience tells us of these single 
cycles; but Intuition beholds them as universal, 
not as an inference from without, but from its 
own insight, its own self-knowledge. 

Then we have scientific Intuition, which is not 
merely developed from the study of details, but 
is the spontaneous act of the Reason also. It is 
said that Cuvier needed only a bone to recon- 
struct the whole animal, he would build out of 
the one bone the skeleton, the flesh, the habits, 
and even the animal's environment. In the one 
part he saw the total ; in the small segment the 
whole cycle of the animal. Undoubtedly this 
skill presupposed great knowledge and study ; 
but a naturalist of greater learning than Cuvier 
may not have his Intuition of the whole, this 



BEASON. 525 

vision of the totality suggested by one particular. 
Just one particular and the whole springs up 
before the mind: that is Intuition. Darwin, too, 
has this scientific Intuition (sometimes it is 
called scientific Imagination) which can seize a 
vast chain of evolution through one link; then 
he can go to work and prove his Intuition by 
reasoning, by induction so-called. Newton's case 
of seeing the movement of the physical universe 
in the fall of an apple is not unknown. 

Sometimes the scientific man drops back upon 
his inductive syllogism, denies the higher intui- 
tive Reason. Very different was Goethe, the 
naturalist. He saw that the multiplicity of the 
plant had its unity in the leaf, this leaf he 
unfolded into the total cycle of plant form. He 
discovered the intermaxillary bone by scientific 
Intuition ; but the scientists denied its existence 
for a quarter of a century, though it is now 
found always in the jaw. No doubt there is a 
danger here, the vision may become fantastic 
and see what does not exist. 

In like manner an event may suggest a cycle 
of events; we have already alluded to the affair 
of the Diamond Necklace, which, to Goethe's 
mind, foreshadowed the French Revolution. A 
gesture, a look, a word may be a part which, to 
an intuitive glance, will reveal the total man, or 
the complete action. Most people have some 
share of intuitive power, must have, if they are 



526 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

rational; the rare spirits make it an all-seeing 
power. It is also claimed more for women than 
for men. 

Cuvier's bone was a. very small part of what 
he saw ; the rest was himself. The total animal 
was his own, made by him, created as God 
created Eve, from a bone. His Ego unfolded it 
out of itself, though he never saw the animal, 
though it does not now exist, inasmuch as it be- 
longs to some past geologic epoch. It is manifest 
that he possessed the animal without the bone, 
his was the total order of which the bone or even 
the animal was but one manifestation. That 
order was his own Ego. The contemplation of 
Nature led to his own Self. And this is the high- 
est fruit of physical science, very rarely plucked 
however, because so high: it leads man from the 
particular to the universal, from chaos to order, 
from Nature to the Spirit ordering Nature by 
way of the Intuitive Reason, and not by that 
of the inductive syllogism, which, however, has 
its place. 

II. Intuition of the /Subjective World. The 
Intuitive Reason, in seeing what is total and 
complete in Nature, is brought back to itself and 
then finds an order corresponding to what it saw 
outside of itself. Really it has discovered itself 
in discovering the objective fact ; it went forth 
to seek the external and found the internal. If 
it has adequately explained Nature, it has even 



REASON. 527 

more adequately explained itself, inasmuch as 
whatever it knows, it knows only through its 
own activity. All external knowing must be 
likewise an internal knowing, for that which 
knows is the Ego, and that which is known, in 
order to be known, must be translated into the 
Ego. If there is anything outside of the known, 
like the so-called unknowable, surely we can 
know nothing of it, can say nothing concerning 
it, cannot logically call it even by the name of un- 
knowable. For if we affirm that a certain realm 
is unknowable, we have to know a good deal 
about it, in fact the whole nature of it, to say so. 

The Ego now sees itself as the process, spe- 
cially as the threefold process of itself. Self- 
consciousness we have already called this stage, 
whose movement is the Self or Ego rising to a 
recognition of itself as the universal process, 
which orders not only Nature or the outside world, 
but itself. Thus the Ego comes to the Intuition 
of Self, for, even though it be a process, it must 
at last intuit just this process. 

That is, the psychological movement, as hither- 
to unfolded, has gone forward until it has reached 
its ground in the Intuitive Reason, or the Ego 
intuiting itself a3 the organizing principle of the 
Subjective WorM, which is indeed itself. Thus 
the Ego sees itself immediately as the self-organ- 
izer. In Sense-perception the Ego really beholds 
the sensuous object in Space and Time as itself, 



528 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

annulling the same and then recreating it in order 
to perceive it. In Representation the object is 
already the Ego's own, but as image, this being 
also a reproduction by the Ego of its own internal 
content. In Thought generally the Ego beholds 
its own process in the world as a whole; in the 
present form of Intuition, which is a stage of 
Thought, the Ego beholds itself as the process of 
the Subjective World. 

Throughout the foregoing exposition, the 
appeal has always been made to the Ego that it 
intuit its own process, that it see itself organ- 
izing the minutest psychical detail. The reader, 
therefore, is familiar with this intuitive procedure, 
since he has been exercising himself in it more 
or less implicitly from the beginning of the 
present psychological movement. Now, how- 
ever, he has come to know himself as such 
intuitive activity, and through it as the organizer 
of the science of mind. 

The Ego as Intuitive Reason has now trav- 
eled through Nature and Self, the objective 
and subjective spheres, and finds itself one in 
both, and indeed both as one and itself. It sees 
itself as the active unifying principle which joins 
together the external and internal worlds; it 
beholds the twain, the twofold, the grand dual- 
ism united in the Self, which is the self-active, 
self-knowing Ego looking upon and identifying 
both worlds. 



SEASON. 529 

At the same time, the Ego has difference upon 
it, is this particular finite Ego. Still, in order to 
be Ego at all, it must see the Ego as universal; 
it must intuit the Universal Ego as its own 
counterpart, completion and true essence. There 
could be no individual Ego, unless there was an 
universal Ego, which the former, in order to be 
itself, must behold as universal, the self-creat- 
ing, self-realizing energy of the Universe, the 
infinite Person or Subject-Object. 

III. Intuition of the Universe, or of the Divine 
Order of the World. Not the physical Universe 
is here meant, but the Universe as Spirit and the 
realization of Spirit, or as absolute subject-object. 
This is the highest reach of the Intuitive Keason, 
which now looks upon the pure Idea and its 
Forms, communes with the Divine Ego and its 
manifestations directly, immediately. The Ego 
in Intuition beholds (intuits) the Universal Ego, 
or the Universe as Ego realizing itself and mani- 
festing itself in its own eternal shapes. That is, 
we are now, in this psychological development, 
to rise to the Divine and participate in the same 
by Vision ; the individual Ego is to see not only 
the Godlike, but to share in the Vision of God. 

We may say, in passing, that the word Intui- 
tion is sometimes applied to sensuous Perception 
of the object ; not so here, though this too is a 
kind of Perception ; but the object is now very 
different from that of the senses. 

34 



530 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

The Ego in Intuition will also have its process, 
intuiting first the most immediate Form of the 
Divine Order in Justice, thence passing to its 
Forms of Manifestation in the Beautiful, Good 
and True, and finally beholding the Divine Ego 
itself in the pure Form of itself. 

1. Justice. The Intuition of Justice as a 
principle of the Divine Order of the World, has 
shown itself in all ages, is indeed the very founda- 
tion of a Social Order. Man is to get his own, 
good and bad ; he is to have his deed returned 
to him, which return of the deed takes place 
through this Order in some form; such is the 
grand primal human discipline, through which 
man can associate with his fellow-man. Justice 
declares primordially that the individual shall 
live an universal life, or take the penalty of not 
so living. Every Ego must intuit Justice, must 
recognize and realize in himself the Just, in 
order to exist in an institutional world. 

The State has its end in Justice, to give to 
each his own (suum cuique), specially to give 
back to the doer his deed. Such is the ideal 
purpose of the State, not by any means realized 
or perhaps realizable ; so above Institutional 
Justice we can still often see hovering the hand 
of Divine Justice. Particularly is this last the 
beloved theme of the Prophets and the Poets. 
See Isaiah, see Homer; the latter in his Odyssey 
portrays Divine Justice meting out to those per- 



BEASON. 531 

fidious Suitors their own deeds just through 
the man whom they have wronged, Ulysses. In 
Shakespeare the king, the head of the State and 
the fountain of Institutional Justice, has done the 
work of guilt ; still Macbeth and Claudius are to 
have their deeds brought home through what the 
poet calls God's Justice, which is verily a prin- 
ciple of the Divine Order of the World. 

But the poet's, the prophet's, the artist's expres- 
sion of this Divine Order is a new manifestation 
of it, realized in objective shapes, and reflecting 
it back to man that he may behold it anew and 
know it beforehand. Man must have Justice, 
before he can portray Justice. Justice is the 
first, immediate realization of this Divine Order 
of the World, which founds society and presup- 
poses of every individual that he have some In- 
tuition of it directly. Still he is to have more, 
he is to see it projected into new Forms which 
again he must intuit. 

2. The Beautiful, Good, and True. Such is 
the division in the sphere of Intuition, yet all 
these divisions are manifestations of the Divine 
Ego, reflecting its order and harmony, in a three- 
fold manner — in the sensuous object, in the deed 
aud in the word, through artist, saint, sage, 
touching respectively the feeling, the will, and 
the intellect of the Ego which intuits them. 

(1) The Beautiful images the Divine Idea (or 
Ego) in a sensuous shape, which, however, must 



532 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

be seen not merely by an act of outer Perception, 
but of inner Intuition. Not the mere external 
look can reveal the Sistine Madonna to the Ego ; 
an internal vision is required, an Intuition of 
the Divine manifesting itself to the senses in Art. 
We behold it immediately and call it beautiful. 
The artist is he who thinks. (so to speak) through 
the sensuous form, and utters his conception of 
the Divine in that way. 

(2) The Good images in the deed the Divine 
Order, which is seen to be furthered by such a 
deed, or perchance brought forth and realized. 
Here we may see a division into means and end ; 
the Good is the act which has as its end the 
fulfillment and realization of the Divine ; it mani- 
fests, therefore, the Divine as the Will. The 
Human Will doing the Divine Will is the great 
terrestrial manifestation of the Good. 

(3) The True is the utterance of the Divine 
Order in the Word. There are many kinds and 
grades of Truth ; here we restrict the term to 
the meaning just given. The Intuition of the 
True is not reasoned out, but expressed imme- 
diately by the sage, seer, poet; he sees the grand 
reality of the Universe and utters the same in 
his immediate form. The Word is the highest 
of these finite manifestations of the Divine, 
taking up into itself and setting forth anew both 
the Beautiful and the Good, and creating, in its 
final organized utterance, a Bible. 



REASON. 533 

The Beautiful, Good and True have now run 
their course. They are all seen to be finite man- 
ifestations of the Infinite, terrestial forms of the 
celestial, the limited Ego intuiting the unlimited 
through the limited. Thus they all reveal a 
grand breach or division between Form and 
Content — a finite form expressing an infinite 
Content. The Word, however high and holy, 
still falls short of uttering the Holy of Holies, 
which it finally utters to be unutterable. The 
Ego, however, is, by its very nature, limit- 
transcending; so it transcends this limit of the 
Word and of all Art and Expression, till it stands 
face to face with the Infinite itself, or the Divine 
Person. 

3. Intuition of the Divine Ego. Such is the 
point which the Intuitive Ego has reached; it 
beholds the soul of the Universe as Person, it 
sees the Creator of the Divine Order of the 
World. The Beautiful, Good, and True were 
divine manifestations, but the Ego now beholds 
immediately the Ego which manifested itself in 
them, sees through the Creation to the Creator 
and communes with Him. 

Hence it is that Dante ends his great poem 
with the Vision of God, he can no longer utter 
that which is unutterable ; the poet has attained 
the blessed goal of his long journey; no more 
art, no more song, but Vision. Somewhat in 
the same fashion, yet less distinctly, does Goethe 



534 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

bring to an end his universal poem, Faust, in the 
Mystic Chorus singing: The Indescribable is here 
accomplished (Das Unbeschreibliche Hier wird 
gethan). That is certainly the end of all descrip- 
tion, and so the song ceases. 

Already we have found that our simplest act 
of knowing implies the Divine Ego as Creator of 
the World. All cognition is essentially recogni- 
tion; in the first stage of Sense-perception, we 
cannot perceive a sensuous object in Space and 
Time without the presence of the Divine Ego in 
the object; in fact, that is just what we uncon- 
sciously see and identify therein. But now we 
have traveled through the psychological process 
till the Ego intuits the Universal Ego creating 
the Universe, creating the very object which it 
once externally perceived. The fact that the 
Divine Ego was implicit in the object made it 
possible to be perceived and identified by an 
Ego. Thus the psychological process has led us 
up to the Intuition of the Divine Person as Cre- 
ator. 

At this point we may just note the parallelism 
of Psychology with Religion, which also prom- 
ises that its true followers " shall see God." 
The individual Ego, unfolding through itself 
while seeking to know the objective world, finds 
its complement and fulfillment in the Universal 
Ego, which it at last beholds immediately. The 
religious consciousness, developing through inner 



REASON. 535 

experiences usually, reaches its culmination in 
the Intuition of God. 

Still the religious consciousness is not, even in 
this lofty sphere, free of the opposite, of the 
grand dualism. It is not blasphemy but the 
statement of a fact, a fact vouched for by the 
saints of all ages and climes, by St. Francis" as 
well as by Luther, that the Intuition of God has 
its counterpart in the Intuition of the Devil, who 
is also seen face to face. Thus the Negative slips 
into our intuitive Eden, as the Serpent once 
slipped into Paradise. 

But, dropping the imaginative, poetical and 
religious forms of utterance, we may come back 
to the purely psychological way of stating the 
case: the Ego as Intuition, being immediate, 
finds itself limited therein and must be mediated. 
The intuitive world puts the Negative outside of 
itself and thus falls into dualism, separation, 
finitude. The Ego, however, cannot exclude the 
Negative from itself, but must take it up, and 
master it completely and finally, giving in its 
process the universal form of such mastery. 
This is the Dialectic, next to be unfolded, which 
may be named the utter and final rout of the 
Devil and all his legions, if one prefers to read 
the matter in that way. Just as the religious 
consciousness demands that the Evil One be 
overthrown, and gives its formula for the same, 
so the psychological consciousness demands that 



536 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the Negative be mastered, and that the process 
thereof be formulated in its pure activity. 

II. The Dialectic. 

The difficulty with Intuition is that it leaves out 
mediation ; it can really give no account of itself, 
has no account to give. It sees and proclaims, 
those who listen must see too, or remain outside 
the vision. When I can construe or prove my 
Intuition, it is no longer Intuition; the prophet, 
the seer, the poet is not a reasoner. The result 
is that the True, the Beautiful, the Good, the 
Universal, the Divine, merely as intuited, remain 
abstract, undeveloped, quite helpless against the 
assault of the Negative, which is outside of them. 

The next thing is that the Negative be taken 
up and put inside of them, and thus made a part 
of their process ; thereby they are determined 
within themselves, and become truly concrete. 
The movement of the Ego, by means of which 
the immediate or intuitional stage of Keason is 
mediated into the complete process of Reason is 
called the Dialectic — a word transmitted to us 
from ancient Greece. 

The Dialectic starts with the Particular, the 
Finite, the Negative, in which it shows contradic- 
tion; this contradiction, however, dissolves itself 
in its very nature, or the negation negates itself 
and brings forth the Positive. Such is the result 



REASON. 537 

of the total movement of the Dialectic, which thus 
determines the intuitive ideas of Reason within 
themselves, making them concrete and a process. 
In this way the Dialectic is speculative, positive, 
the living principle of all inner determination; 
through the Dialectic the Ego wins the mastery 
of the Negative, making it over into an element 
of its own movement. As the outcome of the 
Dialectic, we unfold into the principle of self- 
determination, including all outsideness. 

Abstruse enough are these statements, and the 
reader is probably crying out for examples. 
But the trouble is that the example itself must 
be dialectical, and so requires in advance just 
what is to be exemplified. Let him, however, 
take the idea of the Negative, make it universal, 
and see what becomes of it. Must it not negate 
itself? 

The Ego as dialectical Reason is negative, sep- 
arative, just the opposite of the simple identity 
of Intuition ; it enters the realm of dualism, of 
finitude, which, however, is to annul itself 
through the process of the Dialectic. Intuition 
may be deemed a kind of Paradise, into which 
the Devil slips under the form of the Dialectic. 
This too has its movement until it unfolds into 
the pure process of the Negative. 

I. First of all, the Dialectic has to deal with 
the Immediate in one form or other, mediating 
it and showing it to be a phase of a process. The 



538 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

immediate sensuous object before me, yonder 
cloud for instance, can only be known in truth 
as a part of a process. Already we have often 
noticed the first stage of the Ego to be immedi- 
ate. Its dialectical movement begins when the 
Ego determines itself as the other of itself, as 
its own opposite and object, as it does in'con- 
sciousness. It is thus the Different in itself; as 
such, it must differ from itself, and therein 
annul the difference and return to unity. 

Hence the Ego is really the Dialectic, which 
is its innermost process of Self. Its three 
stages, so often introduced in the course of the 
present book, are connected dialectically. First 
is the immediate stage, which is that of simple, 
undeveloped identity; this in turn becomes 
mediated through Difference. Pure immediacy 
is untrue, though it be the starting-point; every- 
thing is mediated. This is the fundamental fact 
with the Ego itself in all its manifestations. It 
sees itself as process, and it sees all things in the 
process. To be sure, it is not mediated from 
without, but from within, that is, self-mediated. 
The Ego as Subject is not only dialectical, but is 
the Dialectic itself, annulling its own immediate- 
ness and through its own movement becoming 
self-mediation. 

II. The object also is dialectical in its innu- 
merable forms, which make up the realm of 
finitude. The intuitive Reason, in its Intuition 



BEASOlsr. 539 

of God, necessarily calls up the grand dualism 
between the Human and Divine, between the 
Finite and the Infinite ; with these last thoughts 
the Dialectic specially occupies itself. The finite 
world is the distinctive arena of dialectical mani- 
festation, in which the finite, is to show its own 
inherent nature by making itself finite, by bring- 
ing itself to an end, that is, by annulling itself 
and therein revealing itself as a phase of the 
infinite process. 

The Ego as subject, being limited by the 
object, knows itself as finite, but as finite it also 
knows that it must come to an end, negate itself 
and pass over into its opposite ; through this inner 
process of itself it transcends its finittide and be- 
comes infinite. But this Infinite, being opposed 
to and hence limited by the Finite, is therein 
itself finitized ; so we have to affirm that the In- 
finite as opposed to the Finite, is itself finite. 
But the Finite by its own necessity must end 
itself, and become again the Infinite. Now 
this second Infinite which has unfolded itself 
through the Finite is not the same as the 
first or immediate Infinite, but is really the 
process which takes up into itself the Finite 
as a moment or element. In like manner, the 
Dialectic of the immediate Finite shows the latter 
annulling itself and passing over to its opposite, 
the Infinite, and thus again forming the process 
already described. 



540 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

Such is, in general, the Dialectic of the Finite 
and Infinite, each of which has shown itself con- 
stituting a process; thus they make two pro- 
cesses which, however, are to be identified as 
one. But this identification is itself a process of 
the Ego, the third mediatorial one, which is the 
final mediation of the two opposites of the Uni- 
verse, namely the Finite and the Infinite. But 
this is a step which will be considered later on. 

In the two manifestations of the Dialectic 
above given, the Immediate and the Finite, we 
may spy out a common movement. The Imme- 
diate annulled itself and passed over to the 
Mediated, yet this too annulled itself and became 
the Self-mediated, or the process. In like manner 
the Finite comes to an end through itself, and 
goes over to the Infinite, which, however, an- 
nuls itself as the opposite of the Finite, and 
forms the process with the same. In both these 
dialectical movements there lurks a common prin- 
ciple; what is it? Annulment, or the Negative 
with its process, which we may in general call 
negativity. 

III. This common principle, the Negative, is 
itself dialectical ; indeed the Dialectic is essen- 
tially just the movement of the Negative which is 
now to be looked at as it is in itself, in its own 
process, — the whole constituting a brief science 
of negativity. 

First of all, there is the simple Negative, 



BEASON. 541 

which may be called immediate, which manifests 
itself in change, in destruction, in limitation of 
every kind. As before said, it is the immanent 
principle in the world of finitude ; it is the 
demiurge whose work is to make all things a 
fleeting show of reality. But, in the second 
place, the Negative, to be true to its principle, 
must negate itself; destruction destroys destruc- 
tion at last, the fire burns itself out and is no 
longer fire. We see, therefore, that the Nega- 
tive is inherently sell-negative; even Satan, in 
the legend, tortures not his foes, but his follow- 
ers, who are himself. In the third place this 
negation of the Negative is not to remain a 
negation, is not to be merely self-destroying, but 
must advance to the Positive ; the negation of 
the Negative must be made through the activity 
of the Ego the grand affirmation. Or morally 
considered, repentance is not simply to annihilate 
the bad in man, but to bring forth the good. 
Such is the dialectical process of the Negative in 
its completeness. 

Let us turn the matter over again. The Neg- 
ative at first negates something, which is its 
immediate act; then it negates the negation, 
which is itself, and remains negative therein; 
finally it reaches the Positive by negating the 
Negative, and this Positive is the process of the 
world eternally going on and not a dead result. 
Let us grasp the thought of change and see what 



542 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the total process of it means. At the start we 
say that all changes, all is transitory ; yet even 
thus change itself must change, being included in 
the all; but if it changes, it must be other than 
change, it must be permanent. Thus we cannot 
think change, without thinking it as the abiding 
process of itself ; for if all changes, one thing 
surely abides, and that is change. 

This dialectical movement of the Negative 
runs deep all through the modern world, which 
is largely a world of negation, seeking somehow 
to found itself upon doubt, denial, skepticism, 
agnosticism. But the man who declares that he 
cannot know, is already self-negating, for even 
such a declaration can only rest upon knowl- 
edge : he knows that he cannot know. The 
movement of the Negative has found its com- 
pletest poetical expression in the marvelous 
drama of Faust, which draws its theme from the 
heart of the century, and reveals the mastery of 
the Negative. 

If we have entered into the soul of the preceding 
movement, we have reached the insight into what 
may be called the duplicity of tlte Negative, its in- 
herent twofoldness, yet oneness; it is the insight 
into the nature of that spirit which denies and 
destroys, yet which thereby brings forth new life. 
Mark well the person who is stoutly affirming the 
Negative ; is he not already in an act of self-con- 
tradiction? He will always get cut in two by his 



REASON. 543 

own statement. John says all men are liars; 
yet John is a man ; what, then, is John but a 
liar? His own negation turns back and involves 
himself, and also negatives his statement. A so- 
called philosopher affirms that man cannot know 
truth ; how then can the philosopher know it to 
be true that man cannot know truth? In his 
very utterance he has to imply the opposite of 
what he declares, he has to negate his own nega- 
tion. The universe rests upon affirmation, not 
upon negation, which negation could itself not be 
unless it were affirmed. ■ 

The grand result of the dialectical movement is 
to make explicit and to bring to consciousness this 
duplicity of the Negative, and therewith to pre- 
pare the only way for its mastery. Subtle, 
elusive, Protean in its transformation, yet having 
one shape at bottom, the Negative can be seized 
and made to show its native form by the Dia- 
lectic. Unquestionably all negation is twofold 
and manifold, double-faced, self-contradictory; 
but it can be caught, like old Proteus, who is its 
Homeric prototype, and can be forced to tell the 
truth which lurks in all finite appearances; to 
the world's lie in every shape, it can be made to 
give the lie. Yet this is not all, for such a re- 
sult would only be negative still ; the Dialectic 
must sweep forward to the Positive, and thus 
reach the concrete process of Reason. Here is, 
indeed, the central point in philosophy, the 



544 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

point at which it becomes the most practical of 
all disciplines. Moreover, here is the final test 
of the psychologist. Were he to come into our 
hands for examination, our first and last ques- 
tion would be: Do you comprehend the duplicity 
of the Negative? And can you handle it as your 
implement of Thought? Only too often, we 
fear, the questions themselves would not be 
understood, not to speak of the answers to 
them. 

Again it may be stated that the grand out- 
come of the Dialectic is the mastery of the 
Negative speculatively, which means spiritual 
mastery over delusion, appearance, denial, un- 
truth ; finally it means the soul's triumph over 
mortality and finitude. Death is answered by 
the Dialectic ; it is not a mere evanishment 
into nothing, or even into the Beyond ; it is 
the death of death, the real end of the Finite, 
which is the infinite life, not the unreal end of 
the Finite, which is a mere passing away. To 
employ again the preceding formula, Death is 
not simple negation, but negation of negation, 
which remains not a negative but is a positive 
result. This is what is involved in the mastery 
of the Negative — immortality, and the Ego is 
the immortal master. 

Undoubtedly this dialectical play of the Nega- 
tive has been in bad repute among certain people 
unwilling or unable to think it out to its end. It 



REASON. 545 

has been regarded as the source of all sophistry, 
mental deception, and moral confusion, as the 
puzzling labyrinthine net spun by the father of 
lies to tempt and to entrap the too eager seeker 
of truth. We have been exhorted to shun the 
dialectical maze and to fall back upon intuition, 
faith, or other forms of the immediate activity 
of the Spirit. Still the courageous thinker feels 
that he cannot run away from any shape of 
Thought; it is just his call to master Thought 
through Thought ; to flee the fiend is to rush into 
his embrace. So the dialetical movement of 
the mind has occupied the greatest philosophers 
of all time, and its mastery is the final test of 
their greatness. 

Historical. The history of the Dialectic 
would be the history of the inner movement of 
Thought. Particularly does it unfold and play 
an important part in the Greek world. It is not 
too much to say that ancient Homer, though the 
language of philosophy had not in his day been 
developed in Greece, had his way of looking at 
the Dialectic, and that way is mythical. Already 
allusion has been made to the story of Proteus, 
the Old Man of the Sea, who can transform him- 
self into everything on land and in the water, 
yet who is and remains the One in all his 
changes, and this One is universal mind or 
spirit which knows past, present and future, and 
tells the truth. Nor can we forget those two 

35 • 



546 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

mythical shapes embodying the dualism of ex- 
istence, Scylla and Charybdis, which have 
come down through all literature as a vivid 
illustration of the Dialectic of human conduct, 
and which the hero, is to pass through and 
master, ere he can return home. 

This mythical Dialectic naturally becomes ex- 
plicit in the course of time, the work of Im- 
agination transforms itself into the work of 
Thought. The early Greek philosophers began 
to catch up shreds of the dialectical process; 
Zeno, the Eleatic, employs it in his famous pro- 
position which seeks to disprove motion. The 
Sophists elaborated it, especially on its negative 
side; the result was, they transmitted the evil- 
sounding word sophistry to the future. It is 
the secret fermenting principle in the irony of 
Socrates, who used it in part to refute the 
Sophists; he, therefore, must have felt its 
positive element. The irony of Socrates de- 
velops into the Dialectic of Plato, who is its 
greatest ancient expounder. Plato is different 
in his different dialogues, at times he seems 
purely negative in his Dialectic, then again he 
gives glimpses of its positive outcome. But he 
has transmitted to us the name and the thing, 
for which reason he is justly held in veneration as 
one of the greatest teachers and benefactors of 
mankind. The work of Aristotle is not distinct- 
ively dialectical, but rather analytic and separa- 



REASON. 547 

tive ; in the movement of Thought he separates 
Form and Content, and elaborates the Forms of 
Thought, which constitute the so-called Formal 
Logic. Hence it comes that Logic gets to be 
more or less external to the total process of 
Thinking, while the Dialectic is just the totality 
of Thought creating its own Forms in its own 
act. 

In modern philosophy the negative element in 
Hume's skepticism furnished the starting-point 
for Kant, according to the latter's declaration, 
and the great German movement opens, extend- 
ing from Kant to Hegel. The dialectical char- 
acter of this movement comes out especially in 
Kant's Antinomies of Pure Reason, which unfold 
into the Dialectic of Hegel. For the Antino- 
mies of Kant have essentially a negative result 
for Thought, which result Hegel transforms 
into a positive, again negating the Negative in 
the completest manner, and making the Dialectic 
the inner moving principle of the most gigantic 
system of Philosophy yet constructed among 
men. Psychology, when it reaches Thought, has 
above all things to take into account the work 
of Hegel, which must still be regarded as the 
latest and highest manifestation of human 
Thinking. Yet, it is not the finality, it too is 
in the total process and is to be transcended. 
It is not, however, to be refuted or abolished ; 
it is to be taken up into the next higher stage 



548 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

and become an active element thereof, just as 
Hegel himself resumed into his Thought Spinoza 
and Kant, and even Plato and Aristotle, whom 
he especially studied. 

The outcome of the Dialectic, as already 
stated, is the mastery of the Negative, which 
serves it up to itself, and brings forth the posi- 
tive result as a process. We may call it the 
movement of pure negativity, in which negation 
is turned back upon itself by itself, and is made 
the grand nexus of the Universe, which is therein 
always becoming its own other while remaining 
itself. Or, it is the primal creative Conception, 
which must create finitude, and so must create 
with it the Dialectic, which annuls the Finite 
into the infinite process. But this nexus must 
not only be, it must be conscious; not simply 
implicit but explicit ; the nexus must recognize 
itself as nexus, as indeed just the process of 
identification. Thus the Ego passes out of the 
Dialectic into its last manifestation, which is the 
Psychosis. 

III. The Psychosis. 

Throughout the present work the appeal has 
often been made to the Psychosis, which has 
shown itself to be the unitary principle running 
through and binding together all mental opera- 
tions. It is that which has connected the minut- 



BEASON. 549 

est psychical act with the total sweep of the Ego ; 
it has been the mediating bond between all the 
divisions of our science. But the Psychosis has 
been hitherto more or less undeveloped, suggest- 
ive, not self-knowing; now it has reached the 
point at which it is to become aware of itself as 
the final and supreme activity of the Ego. 

We may call it the process of recognition. 
Through the Dialectic, the Ego came to know 
the Finite as a process and the Infinite also as a 
process, and to recognize the two processes as 
one. But this act of recognition is just the mean 
which unites the two, and identifies them with 
itself. That is, the Ego sees the process of each 
to be its own, itself, which is the one process in 
both, yet the separate process which unites both. 
This is the Psychosis, which is also a process, 
showing the Ego dividing itself into the two pro- 
cesses and then identifying them with itself in 
a third process. 

The Psychosis is in general the recognition of 
the process in all things, and the complete 
identification of the same with itself. It recog- 
nizes the movement in the object and in the 
subject, in the world and in self; then it recog- 
nizes both movements to be one, and this one 
movement to be its own. The Ego in the Psy- 
chosis is thus not only recognition of unity in 
subject and object, but it recognizes this recogni- 
tion as itself, as its own process, which is thereby 



550 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

the mean supreme uniting the grand dualism of 
the Universe. The Ego identifies its identifi- 
cation of the two sides as the final principle of 
their mediation, and it must not only identify, 
but grasp itself as the identifier, or mediator. 

The movement of unity which was immanent 
in the Dialectic as positive result, is explicit in 
the Psychosis, which mediates all separation ; it 
shows difference, finitude, negation, annulling 
themselves and making the nexus with the whole 
out of the partial, the limited, the finite. 

The Psychosis at the highest is creative 
Thought creatively (that is, through the pro- 
cess) thinking creative Thought in its pure 
activity. The Ego in the Psychosis is not only 
a positive process — this it would be already 
through the Dialectic — but it is the process in 
all processes and recognizes itself as such. 

At the end of the dialectical movement we 
attain the concrete Ego, at the end of the Psy- 
chosis we attain the science of the Ego. For the 
Ego having reached the Psychosis, has its own 
process within itself and knows itself to be the 
same ; all its knowing is finally the recognizing 
its own process in the object. With this recog- 
nition of its concrete Self as the ordering and 
mediating principle of the world, the Ego has 
attained its highest power, and brings the science 
of Psychology to a close. The Ego, as medi- 
ated subject-object, identifies this as the moving 



REASON. 551 

soul of all things, it is the idea which takes on 
reality. 

The foregoing statements give many turns and 
repetitions to the same thought. They are 
utterly empty, unless filled with the content of 
the Ego by the Ego of the reader. He must 
emphatically make the Psychosis in reading of 
the Psychosis. The word is mere sound, till it 
be filled with its meaning, and here the meaning 
is Psychosis, which is the pure act of the Ego 
thinking its own process. 

The Psychosis is, in general, the mean pro- 
cess, which mediates the two processes of sub- 
ject and object. The stages of the Psychosis 
as this mediating process we shall briefly 
designate. 

I. The Ego as Psychosis knows itself as the 
unitary movement in all Psychology, as that 
which makes the mind one in all of its mani- 
festations. Thus it gives the movement, the 
organizing principle, the Method. As Ego sim- 
ply, it is the threefold process of Conception; 
but as Psychosis it is the mean which connects 
all particularity and multiplicity into unity. 

The fact need hardly be told the reader that 
the Psychosis has been the Method moving 
through and organizing the present book from 
the start, the form-giving principle whose 
activity is its own content or subject-matter. 
This Method is that of the Ego itself, not derived 



552 PSYCHOLOGY AND TEE PSYCEOSIS. 

from Natural Science on the one hand, nor 
from some metaphysical system on the other. 
Our science must have its own Method taken 
from its theme directly, which is the Ego; 
indeed, just this is the source of all true Method 
and Organization. 

II. The Method is that which orders and 
organizes; that which is ordered and organized is 
the System. The Ego as Method is the active 
Form, yet just this activity of the Ego is the 
thing ordered, or the Content, which constitutes 
Psychology proper or the science, the System of 
the Ego. 

The Ego has division, separation, special 
activities, or faculties so-called ; there would be 
no mind unless it specialized itself into distinct 
acts. These manifold determinations of the 
Ego must be ordered, not from the outside, but 
from the inside, by the Ego itself; thus arises 
the System. All true systematization is the 
work of the Ego, as Psychosis, or as Method; it 
takes the vast details of the science, the chaotic 
phenomena, random experiments, scattered obser- 
vations, and arranges them by its own rule, 
which is its own process. Mere external classi- 
fication of mental activities is not scientific, is 
more or less capricious ; the inherent Method of 
the Ego must be seen winding through all the 
activities of the Ego and unfolding them into a 
System. 



UEASON. 553 

So we have the Ego as Method, as the subject- 
ive creative principle ; also we have the Ego as 
System, as the objective ordered series of facts. 
The sides have shown themselves different, and 
have fallen asunder, hence arises the danger that 
both Method and System may become external 
to each other and to their common generative 
principle, the Ego. Thus both Method and 
System, especially in the science of mind, may 
drop down into the sheerest death-dealing 
formalism, and mechanical abacadabra. Soul- 
destroying is such Psychology, and we have the 
result so deeply longed for by a certain school of 
Psychologists, namely, " a Psychology without a 
soul." 

But the rescue from such a lamentable out- 
come of our science is at hand. Though the 
Ego as Psychosis, as the science of itself in the 
very activity of self-knowing, must drop into 
difference and separation, into the formalism of 
Method and System, still it has in itself the 
power of its own salvation and indeed of all 
salvation. The Ego as Psychosis must return 
to itself, and thus mediate itself through the 
Psychosis. 

III. This is the Psychosis grasping itself as 
Psychosis, the psychical process recognizing the 
psychical process as the inner principle of sub- 
ject and object and of their unity. We may 
call it the absolute Psychosis, which knows itself 



554 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

to be soul of both Method and System as well 
as the actual process of their unification. 

If we look back a little distance over the road 
traveled, we find that the Ego in the Dialectic 
attains the positive processes of both itself and 
the object, and posits implicitly their unity. 
Now this implicit unity is made explicit and 
unfolded into the process of the Ego in the 
Psychosis, which is essentially the development 
of the mean process between Subject and 
Object. The Psychosis as Method revealed 
itself as the active moving principle in all 
things, as their process ordering and organiz- 
ing them; the Psychosis as System showed 
itself as the ordered whole, in which the process 
is manifested as result. Finally the separation 
between Method and System is overcome by a 
new Psychosis, which mediates the two sides in a 
common process, and restores them to a new 
unity. The movement of the Psychosis is, there- 
fore, to dirempt itself into two sides, both of 
which are processes by themselves, which how- 
ever unite in the third, which is the Psychosis of 
the Psychosis, or the absolute Psychosis. 

This last Psychosis has in it the recognition of 
itself as the soul of all objectivity as well as sub- 
jectivity, and posits the unity of the two, not as 
repose, or as something fixed, but as the process 
which identifies the two processes. This is the 
final Psychosis of Man and the Universe, recog- 



BE AS ON. 555 

nizing itself as the nexus, and also as the two 
sides which are to be connected. Therein we 
have reached up to the principle of absolute 
mediation. 

The objective world the Ego recognizes as the 
.process of the Ego, yet not the product of itself. 
The Ego does not create it primordially, yet 
creates it over again ideally in recognizing it. 
The Ego knows nature as a process, as a concep- 
tion realized, which is the act of the Universal or 
Divine Ego. Thus the human Ego, recognizing 
its own process in the object, knows the same to 
be posited not by itself but by the creative Ego, 
which objectifies itself as the world's process, 
and recognizes itself in the same as Psychosis. 
Herein the Ego rises to a recognition of the 
Divine Psychosis, recognizing in it the Divine 
Recognition of the Self, as previously it rose to 
a recognition or a seeing of the Divine Ego 
through Intuition. But the Ego has transcended 
the sphere of immediate Intuition; it has 
mastered, taken up, and mediated the Negative 
through the dialectical process. 

With the Divine Psychosis we have reached 
the last stage of Psychology proper, the point 
at which it goes over into a different science. 
The Universal Ego as Psychosis is not immedi- 
ate, but mediated and mediatorial ; in fact, it is 
just the process of absolute or Divine Mediation. 
It is the Son, the Mediator as such, who has to 



556 PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PSYCHOSIS. 

go through the Dialectic of all Finitude, and 
thereby master the Negative in all of its shapes, 
manifesting at last the culmination in the death 
of Death, which is Eternal Life. The Father we 
may reach through Intuition, but the Son is 
truly grasped through the Psychosis. Thus the 
Individual Ego as Psychosis finds its completion 
and fulfillment in the Divine Ego as Psychosis. 



L'BRARY OF 










O0GCOC8X33C 



I 



